All right. I think Ann can speak. OK, first of all, we want to welcome everybody. We're really glad that you're joining us. And we are recording today's forum. I am now speaking for Ann until we can get her ability to be unmuted. But you know the note about our Zoom etiquette. Keep your microphones on mute during the presentation by both today's speakers and during the question and answer period that follows. Please only unmute yourself if you are called upon during the question and answer. And because we are blessed to have two speakers, our question and answers will extend a little longer, probably till about 20 after 12. Thank you all for inviting us today at First Church through Zoom. And thank you for joining us. I hope you will learn something new about the trial of Julian Assajj, or Ray prefers the trials of Julian Assajj and their implication for press freedom. Today, we are extremely fortunate to have with us Nils Melzer, and he's going to have to help me with the pronunciation. He is a UN Special Reporter on Torture and Other Cruel in Human and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. And he's also the human rights chair of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. He is a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow. And Nils has become a powerful voice documenting the judicial and media malfeasance in the case of Julian Assajj. Welcome Special Rapporteur Melzer. And we're fortunate also to have Ray McGovern, a 27 year Russian analyst for the CIA and a presidential daily briefer for three presidents. 20 years ago, Ray created an organization of former intelligence officials and whistleblowers called VIPs, Veteran Intelligent Professionals for Sanity, that includes two former technical directors of the NSA. Ray, let me know. Oh, Ray has warned us that he looks a little disheveled in solidarity with his friend, his longtime pal, Julian Assajj, who was removed by the British police without due process from the Ecuadorian Embassy. Welcome, Ray. Now, as you know, both of you, each of you will have 20 minutes, and then we'll have 25 minutes to access some of the questions from the chat. Please, friends, put your questions into the chat with your name. And please keep your microphone on mute now and during the Q&A so that there are no interruptions. I am happy to introduce Nels Melzer, the US Special Rapporteur on torture. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for having me. This is obviously a very important event, a very timely event with the recent developments in this case. I would say it has been a timely event for 10 years. And so I'm very happy to be able to address this with you today. But let me start by saying that two years ago, I refused to get engaged in this case. I was contacted by Julian Assanta's lawyers. He was still at the Ecuadorian Embassy at the time. And they asked for the protection of my mandate as the UN Special Rapporteur on torture that I would intervene on his behalf to prevent his expulsion from the embassy and to protect him against inhumane treatment in the embassy. I didn't even really take note of that. I mean, I remember that I got this request. And I have to say I received 10 to 15 requests today and can maybe deal with one. So it's normal for me to go through the selection process very quickly. But I have this visceral reaction of, oh, Julian Assanta, this is this rapist and traitor and hacker and spy. And I'm not going to get manipulated by this man. So I have other things to do. And so I kind of brushed it aside. And I say this deliberately because I think many people think like that.  But you don't have to feel bad about it because it's normal to be deceived because there has been a relentless campaign in the mainstream media mainly and by governments to portray him exactly as that, precisely with the purpose of generating this kind of rejection in us. So we wouldn't want to actually listen to the man because what he had to say is very threatening not to any one of us, but to the security establishment and not only of the US, but of basically essentially the whole state in the world. And so let me say this. Let me say this as a formal legal advisor to the National Committee for my function as the United Nations rapporteur. So if you have not been deceived, that is also normal because that's the point of deception. As soon as you understand that you are being deceived by a narrative, clearly there no longer is a deception. So let me maybe go into this a little bit. His lawyers had to get back to me about three months later in March 2019. He was just before he was expelled from the embassy and they sent me some additional pieces of evidence. And so when I started to look into these pieces of evidence, I started realizing that that narrative that I had in my mind was not supported by the evidence. And so I went through this point by point and I felt like I don't know anymore what's true and I don't know which source to trust. So I had to go and actually visit the man and I took two very experienced medical doctors with me, a forensic expert who's been the president of the World Forensic Society for many years, a psychiatrist who specialized in examining torture victims for 30 years. And so I wanted to have an objective medical assessment along with my own experience of visiting prisoners in many countries for many years. And so we went to visit him in Belmarsh prison on the 9th of May, 2019. And I didn't expect to find anything dramatic to be honest. It was the UK, you know, you know, the kingdom I respected a fair treatment, good prison conditions. And I was surprised at what I found. So both doctors and I agreed after visiting Julian Assange for four years and examining him separately from each other that he showed all the symptoms that are typical for a victim of psychological torture. Now, psychological torture is not torture light. Psychological torture is a form of torture that does not leave physical traces, initially at least, and aims directly at the stabilizing a person through isolation, through threat scenarios, so like death threats, for example, constant arbitrariness changing rules and people being purposely pushed to their physical and emotional and psychological limits through non-physical stressors. And this is really what we could observe with him. And so at that point, I asked myself, now I really have to go and look into this case more deeply. How come this man who's been resilient physically and mentally all his life is at the breaking point after these years in the embassy? And I started investigating this thing. Now I will go into two points more specifically because they have been very prominent in destroying the reputation of Julian Assange. And the first thing I started out with really was the rape allegations in Sweden. Why was that so important? It is because, well, first of all, obviously rape is a grave crime and so we need to take it seriously and look at those allegations. The second thing is this was the turning point. This happened in, these allegations were made in August, 2010, just about three weeks after the big Afghanistan war diary was published, was leaked by WikiLeaks. So the biggest military leak in US history. And this was the turning point at which a success story where Assange became more and more famous and celebrated for informing the world about the dirty secrets of states. It turned and it became a story of persecution. From that point on, it's basically downhill for Julian Assange. And so I really wanted to go back to that story and look into this. And I was able to do that with perhaps better than others because part of my family is Swedish. So I actually speak the language and I was able to read a lot of original police documents and proceedings that are not accessible in English language. And what I found was quite shocking. I found that Julian Assange had been in Sweden for a conference and he had had sexual contact with two women and this is not contested on both sides it was consensual and so that that did happen. And in both cases, the women ended up having unprotected sex with Julian and apparently at the circumstances on how that happened are contested. But they did go to the police, both of them, these women who knew each other, they went to the police not because they wanted to report a crime, but because they were worried to have contracted HIV and they wanted him to take an HIV test. And he had just said, well, I've taken one, so it's fine. You don't have to worry about it. I don't have time. And they took it much more seriously. Obviously wanted to push him and went to the police to ask whether they could force him to take an HIV test. And now that is very clearly documented in text messages that are available that these women wrote to each other at the time and through friends by emails. That is the only reason they went to the police. And we can also see that the police immediately turned it around and said, well, this is really about rape. And the women didn't agree with that, but were informed that this was not up to them, that the state had an obligation to prosecute rape and that they were going to make a rape allegation out of this rape investigation. And from that point on, you can see text messages between those women where they're extremely stressed and say, well, we didn't want this. We didn't intend to do this. The police started it all. We didn't want to be part of this, but now we have no choice. And so there is really what we can see is that this doesn't fit with the story that was spread by the authorities of women going to the police and complaining about rape. It looks much more like the police taking a case that had nothing to do with rape initially, but with unprotected intercourse and potential HIV infection and turn it around and use it to their advantage, which was to portray Assange as a suspected rapist. Now, why would they do that? Sweden is a close ally of the US and Afghanistan, as is Britain, as are other countries. They all have been exposed by WikiLeaks. We should not make any mistake about this. Established governments don't like WikiLeaks because it threatens their way of operating where they can basically do their business in secret and very often, unfortunately behind the backs of the parliament and even the public of their own countries. And when we see the types of things that WikiLeaks published, it really embarrassed all these governments and not only embarrassed them, but it even brought evidence for war crimes and very serious cases of corruption and human rights violation. So we shouldn't be surprised that governments were interested in the capacity of a person like that. And also should know that Assange is not the enemy of the American people or Assange is not the, you know, he informed his organization fight secrecy and corruption throughout the world. He has exposed secret information about Russia, about Syria, about Saudi Arabia, about the US, about Kay, about his own country, Australia. So we can't really say he has been aiming at the US. It's just the US is a very powerful country. It's very present, it's terribly in the world. And therefore that's also a bigger share of publicity. I think for American, WikiLeaks and doing Assange have not just concentrated on the, but they have really also published other information as well. And what's very important, none of the information they published was false. Contrary to what has been claimed, and I only found that myself, I researched it. Julian Assange always insisted that the information that was published was being redacted, that it would not endanger anyone. He had long phone calls with the State Department discussing ways on how these diplomatic cables and other documents could be redacted to ensure that no one would be endangered. And actually the government refused to cooperate with WikiLeaks and he never stole or hacked information either, but he actually received it just as a journalist that the New York Times or the Washington Post would receive information from whistleblowers and other sources and then classified information and then publish it if there's a public interest. And so I think we really have to be very careful with this narrative that has been pushed about Julian Assange. The same applies to the DNC leaks. Yes, they were published by WikiLeaks, but they didn't hack those emails, they didn't steal those emails, they published them just as any other journalist in an election campaign, an ongoing election campaign, they received a scoop about one of the candidates who had a real estate corruption or misconduct. Clearly the journalist will publish this. So that's also what he did. Now, this has been turned around saying that somehow there was something particularly malicious about this and that he is a Russian asset or something like this. But I think we have to be extremely careful there that essentially what happened is that he has published truthful information that the public should know about at that case, the Democratic Party or whatever else he has published. All information was of public interest, misconduct of states, of political parties, of companies that polluted the environment in Africa and so on, he published all this information, all of it was of public interest and it was all true. And so what we can see now is that states were really going after him, portraying him as this rapist against the will of the affected women, but they did it so strongly that in the end, the women were forced to join this narrative and there is really evidence in their text messages and their correspondence that illustrates that. We can see that obviously they have an interest in portraying Assange as a spy and as a traitor because they want to divert attention from the things he has published. Now if we want to, I just asked you the question, check for yourself, if the government were in good faith and they find out that some of their soldiers or agents have committed war crimes, if they're in good faith and this is really about applying the law, they would prosecute their war criminals, wouldn't they? Because we're not identifying, we shouldn't be identifying with soldiers who commit crimes. And I've been in war areas, I've worked in war areas and I know that mistakes can happen and that not every mistake is a war crime, but some of the things that have been published by WikiLeaks are evidence for very grave and very clear war crimes and they need to be prosecuted. We shouldn't protect, these are criminals in uniform, they're not, they don't represent their country, they're portraying their country. It's not the whistleblowers that inform about this that are the traitors, it's the ones that commit the crimes that are the traitors. And so I think there we really, I'd really like to invite you to look with fresh eyes onto this case. And I could go on for hours because I've investigated this case for two years. I've made official interventions with all involved case states, the United States, the UK, Sweden and Ecuador and none of these states was prepared to answer my questions, which is my mandate as the UN rapporteur, I was mandated by them to do that, to transmit allegations to them and to ask for clarification. In this case, there was stonewalling. They didn't want to talk about it because clearly they didn't have any good answers to my questions. And so I think this should raise our concerns and should raise our interest and really start asking ourselves, what should we go on here? Who is really betraying whom here? And we perhaps have an interest in looking at the information for ourselves. And looking at various governments, how they dealt with it and whether that really expresses good faith. Is this really about our national security or is it more about the personal security of the perpetrators of crimes and corruption that they don't want to be prosecuted? I have this question for now. Just in my view, prosecuted someone like Afan, who had very courageously stepped out and confronted the most powerful state in the world by publishing true information about their misconduct. If he is prosecuted, but the perpetrators of the crime are not, then this is really about shooting the messenger and about silencing dissent and essentially criminalizing the truth. I think that anyone in America or elsewhere in the world really would want to live in a world where saying this kind of crime. I will stop here. I'm happy to answer any questions on any aspect of this case. Thank you very much. Hello again. Thank you. Nils, that was really great. Sorry, that was great. And now I would like to introduce for Ann Ray McGovern, who counts Julian Assaj as one of his most admired friends. Ray visited Julian several times in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Julian was given political asylum there. Ray was a specialist on Russia for the CIA. He prepared and conducted the morning briefings of the president's daily brief for three presidents. His Twitter page described him as an activist, just this person. And this might just provide a great hint as to why he and Julian are such good friends. It is my honor to be welcoming Ray and it's my introduction that is based on notes from Ann. So have that at Ray and again, welcome. Thank you very much. It's a privilege to be on with Nils Melzer and I'll try to be brief. When I think of what's happened to my friend Julian, what comes to mind of the other words of Willie Lohman's wife and death of a salesman, some of you may remember that play. He's a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.  Now, Julian is a very caring person. His devotion to justice puts other people's fate above his own. And I can tell you that from personal experience, but I thought it might be helpful to, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. Let's do some photos which show the human side of Julian. And Mark, are you ready to show the first photo please? If you could put that up, that would be very helpful. Okay. It was the best of times as well as the worst of times. Here are a number of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and in Sam Adams Associates for Integrity. We were invited by Julian to the Ecuadorian Embassy to have a nice meal, to meet one another and to celebrate, celebrate the conferring of the next Sam Adams Award for Integrity, which Julian had already won in 2010. Could we have the next side please? Now, many of you will not have seen this. This is Julian with Gabriel, or Gabriel, the son that he and Selimaurus conceived and gave birth to in the Ecuadorian Embassy. I can identify with that having had five such experiences. Let's see the next slide please. There is Stella with Gabriel on the right, as you look at it, and Max on the left. They have been without their father and they will be without their father for another period unless we make such a din that justice has to be done. Next picture please. Now I show this because this is Gabriel grown up now, grown up to be two or three. The reason I show it is because he's the spitting image of his father, it seems to me. We Irish would say, ah, he's the spit of his father. Well, he is. And just look at him, look at him now. I think what he's saying in a kind of metaphorical way is, look, you can't put down people fighting against injustice. See that wire over there? I'm gonna pick up where, just where my dad left off. Next photo please. Well, unhappier times. This is Julian being unceremoniously dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy with the connivance of the Ecuadorians and the British and the Americans, of course. You can see he looked pretty disheveled. I decided that there would be one way that I could identify with Julian. And so since April 11th of 2019, I've tried to be looking just as disheveled as he, and I think I may have exceeded the norm. Next photo please. Okay, this is Julian now. He's being transported. I think that's broken glass on the side of that truck. And that's what it looks like now. And so when Nils talks about his being subjected to torture, to psychological torture, which is just as real, if not realer, if that's a word, than physical torture, that's what Julian looks like now as he's being further persecuted. Now you could take that photo down and I'll continue. You know, I was delighted when Julian's mother took note of our conferring on Julian in 2010, right away, the Sam Adams Award for integrity. But his father has also come forward in recent years, John Shipton. And he was asked by an interviewer, and I don't wanna misquote him here. He was asked, you know, what is it? Where does he get this devotion to justice? And John Shipton, his father replied, I don't know the answer to that, but he's always been very, very firm on injustice, has always been, I mean, children. Most children, of course, despise injustice. And then we lose that sense of injustice as we grow older, but with Julian, he hasn't lost it. And would still suffer himself, says his father, before allowing another to suffer cruelty. I visited with Julian several times at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. I remember one time when I said, Julian, you know, there's a lot I admire about you, but nothing more than you're taking the pains to call in all your cards, all your chips from people you knew in Asia. Sending Sarah Harrison, your chief lieutenant, to save Ed Snowden from the equivalent of Belmarsh or those maximum security prisons in the United States. That was great. Now, Julian is not one to show a lot of emotion, but he did then, he got up off the couch and said, yes, yes, Ray, we had to make it possible that somebody could do this courageous act and not end up in jail like Chelsea Manning. He had to be freed. Now, most of you know that Julian was able, through all his contacts, somehow to get Ed Snowden hidden and then on a plane to Moscow, he was due to go to Cuba, but his citizenship was withdrawn on the way to Moscow and that's why he ended up in the Shedemyethev Airport in Moscow. Now, a little side note here. Some of you don't know about Ed Snowden because he's just become a new father. It reminds me of those pictures of Julian. Now, let me just say a word about what WikiLeaks was all about. We whistleblowers were really behind the eight ball and trying to get information out. Dan Ellsberg and his children wore out several Xerox machines getting this stuff together and for the Pentagon Papers. Earlier on, there were Mimeograph machines and then ThermaFax machines and then Xerox. So it was pretty, pretty onerous. What Julian did was figure out a way since the fourth estate, the mainstream press, was more abundant, was being more and more controlled by rich interests, I call them the Mickey Mat, the military industrial congressional intelligence media academia think tank complex. They were all being controlled and never has it been so controlled as today. Well, Julian found a way to go around that and use his incredible imagination and his technical skills to make it possible for someone like Chelsea Manning to give him information, not by Xeroxing it, not by Mimeographing it, but pushing a button and he'd verify it and publish it.  You could imagine, well, don't have to imagine when those of you who look at collateral murder, that infamous video of our Apache helicopter pilots, army, killing a dozen Iraqi civilians and closing over it and then killing a good Samaritan who came along with his children and tried to help one of them. I mean, just look at that. Now, some of you don't know, but there was a Washington Post reporter embedded with that unit and Chelsea Manning has made it very clear in her texts to this fellow limo that David Finkel had access to the videotape. And at the trial, she said, well, I knew he had access to the videotape because he virtually quotes the conversation between these, the terrible conversation between these two pilots. I mean, he had to have it. And Chelsea said, you know, I couldn't believe how he justified it. He thought that what he heard and what they did was justified. So what's the point here? The point is that you can't, you can't depend on reporters for the mainstream press. This is just one little episode and David Finkel, you will not be surprised to learn, is a Pulitzer Prize winner, okay? So that's what Julian did for us.  Let me tell you two tales. Well, in the Bronx, we would say, I'm gonna give you two for instances. At Harvard, they say, case studies, okay? In 1967, I was working on Soviet foreign policy toward China and Vietnam. My friend Sam Adams was working on Vietnam and found out that there were twice as many Vietnamese communists under arms in the South as the generals at our McVie, at our headquarters in Saigon would admit to. He proved it. Every other intelligence agency agreed, except the army of course, and yet he couldn't get that story told. Now he told me that there was a cable on August 20th. Let's see if I have it here. It's here somewhere, the cable said this. It was from Westmorelands Deputy General Abrams. So we can't possibly admit to Adams numbers because we have been consistently saying that there were only 299,000 troops, Vietnamese communist troops in the South. Adams says twice as many and there is no way that any caveats or any explanations could prevent the press from drawing a gloomy and not nice conclusion. That's a virtual quote from this cable. What do I mention that? Well, those were the days when the New York Times might have published that. If I persuaded Sam Adams to give me a copy, I'd go down to New York Times viewer in Washington and say, look, documentary, like Danielsberg's later, documentary, print it, that was 1967. Five months later, there was a Tet offensive where the Vietnamese communists, 600,000 of them raided, attacked and killed lots of people in every city, hamlet and town in South Vietnam. You remember that was called the Tet offensive. So what I'm saying is that, if WikiLeaks were around and available then, what would I have done? Well, I like to think that I might have mustered the courage to push that button and send that cable to Julian Assange to get it published. 1967, the war continued for five or six more years. How many people killed? Now, I don't know if that would have prevented it, but I didn't try. Now, Chelsea Manning tried and knew what happened to her, okay? So this is just one example. Another example would be 9-11. And I refer you to an article in the Los Angeles Times. It's called 9-11, what if? And the if is, what if WikiLeaks were around when the FBI investigators were prevented from doing their jobs by headquarters and when the people who are the red teams that were trying to see if they could penetrate airports and airplanes, if they were allowed to do their job and they weren't, would they have gone to WikiLeaks? The investigators on that red team said, unequivocally, yes, sir, of course we would have. We were frustrated. We knew exactly what was going to happen. That's big, okay? WikiLeaks had not yet hit its stride, of course, 2001, 2002, but now it has. Or that's where they're trying to prevent it. Now, what else can be said here? Well, what John Chippsian said is worth remembering. Julian's devotion to justice came first and foremost. I would just say that, well, let me put it this way. Dr. King in his famous letter from the Birmingham city jail, which I use in every course that I've taught. Dr. King said this, and this is not a very famous quote. He talked about disclosing truth and he compared it to a boil. Now, one time I started talking about boils and when you were an adolescent, did you have boils and Medea Benjamin who was there, said, Ray, too much sharing, too much sharing, okay? Those of you who know what boils are, I don't need any description, okay? This is what Dr. King said. Like a boil that can never be healed as long as it's covered up, but must be opened with all its pus flowing ugliness to the natural remedies of air and light. So to injustice must be disclosed with all the friction as exposure creates to the light of human conscience and to the air of national opinion before it can be healed. That's how Julian felt about injustice, that it had to be exposed. And if there was a price to pay, I just think of Julian here calling in all his cards, all his chits to save it. It's no knowing that that would make Julian enemy number 111 with the powers that be. He did it for it and it is eternally grateful, of course. So let me just finish with this. I know that this is a UU forum and I know we're very eclectic and expect in welcoming all views, including religious views. But I would like to call on Kurt Vonnegut, a famous humanist who was asked about Jesus of Nazareth. And Kirk says, well, you know, I don't know if he was the son of God or not, but if it weren't for the sermon on the Mount with its dicta of justice and truth and mercy and love, I think I just as well be a rattlesnake, okay?  Well, toward the end of that sermon on the Mount, which we call the Beatitudes, it's blessed be, blessed be. There's a last beatitude, okay? And since it's Sunday and since we're sort of in church, I'm gonna read it. You're blessed when your commitment to justice provokes persecution. You can be glad when that happens. I know that you're in good company. Please, do you know that you're in good company because my prophets and witnesses have always got into this kind of trouble? Well, Julian is in big trouble. My own personal view is that I think they hope he'll catch COVID-19 and die. So what are we gonna do? The last thing I'll say here is that, well, I like to quote or use the quote that talks about the Noah. The Noah saying. And that is, no more awards for predicting rain. Awards only for building arcs, arcs. So it's up to us to build some arcs, folks. The rain has been predicted and been falling for 10 years now. So I know that Anne has some suggestions toward the end of this, but we need to do more than just complain and predict. We need to get out there and show that a truth teller is worthy of the kind of support that we can give them. I thank you very much for your attention. Okay, I'm now going to ask you both to look at the chat and see if you can read and answer some of those questions. So you'll need to read as well because some people are not able to see the chat. Thank you, Mark. The first person I would like to call on is Deepa, Dr. Deepa Driver. We're trying to have the speakers actually read those chat questions. Fair enough. Can you see those? The first one it seems to me is from John Gilow. Yes, Mark, Anne has requested that the first person that we call on is Deepa Driver and I'm requesting that you would unmute her. I'm gonna, you know, it's not so easy to find it. I think it was with Mark. Oh, driver. Oh, here we go. She's unmuted. She's unmuted. I am unmuted. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you very much, Anne, for organising this to UWU for, it is a fantastic event and it's great to hear Nielsen, Ray speak and talk about what's really important in the case. I wanted to make a quick comment if I may about, I was the legal observer on behalf of the whole day in society of socialist lawyers at the trial of, at the hearings, extradition hearings of Julian Assange that took place in September and also I attended court for the verdict as well as for the bail hearing. And I wanted to reiterate that the psychological torture of Julian hasn't stopped. It continues to this day. And it was quite, and I speak in a personal capacity here rather than on behalf of the society, but I have to say that I was appalled at the way in which access was denied to legal and press observers at the court. People like reporters without borders, Amnesty International and our society were, things were made very difficult in terms of accessing the court, even when 66 seats were available in the public gallery, only four seats were made available for the public and observers put together. There were also serious issues with Julian's own rights and the treatment of those who attended court, including his family. And it was really quite upsetting to watch his 70 plus year old father walk up six different flights of stairs to come to a little balcony off from where he could see. And at all stages we treated quite, all of us were treated with very little humanity. Although the trial had some fantastic witnesses, I'm also appalled at the way in which the expert witness testimony is not appropriately, has not appropriately been reported upon or included within consideration of the judgment that really worries me. In particular, I'm concerned about the way in which medical expert testimony, which was used to say that although they ignored things like the fact that it was a political prosecution, that there were issues in relation to violations of Julian's due process rights in terms of attorney client privilege, his legally privileged conversations were spied upon and used in, I mean, it's rare that I see a case where the prosecution is continuing to conduct the case when they have been involved in potentially poisoning or abducting the defendant. So these things, I mean, I won't go on because this is not what it's about. It's about listening to Ray and Niels. But I just wanted to say that the case seems to me to follow the pattern of the strat for leaks where they said that they would move Julian from country to country, treat him like a bride in prison and make him eat cat food. And Julian, as of a day ago, although he was given, sent warm clothing in October, he's still not been given warm clothing. Heating at the prison has broken down several times at the temperature in, I'm in London and the temperatures below zero several nights. He is in a wing where there are COVID positive prisoners or have been over 50 at one point. And this kind of treatment of a visionary, highly intelligent human being, floor as he may be like the rest of us are, and is absolutely unconscionable. And we have to come together left or right to oppose this kind of behavior. And we have to do it for the protection of whistleblowers. We have to do it for the protection of the freedom of the press. We have to do it for the protection of Julian. But most importantly, we have to do it for protecting citizens' rights to know about the crimes that governments committed their name. Thanks. And thank you very much Niels and Ray for, and Ray particularly I enjoyed hearing your personal experience of your friendship with Julian, it was great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Deepa. If our speakers Ray and Niels would unmute yourselves, you are welcome to comment on what Deepa shared. Also I'm gonna point out that Anne has put her email in the chat. And so anyone who wants to follow up, I promise you she'll get you a lot of material at AnneWISCatGmail.com. AnneWISCatGmail.com. Okay friends, go ahead Rayman or Niels, whoever wishes to respond. Maybe I can say something about the recent decision in the UK judge refusing for the moment, at least Julian Sanchez's extradition to the United States. I think it's a very misleading decision and I'm glad Deepa brought it up because at the first sight, well clearly, well the result is that's what everybody was hoping for, who's on the right side of history, right? We all, I mean, the first thing I said about this case when I finally understood it was on the early April 2019, before he actually was expelled from the embassy, was that I called on Ecuador, not to expel him, and I called on the UK in case of expulsion, not to extradite him to the US, because precisely of the risk of inhumane treatment and an unfair trial at the so-called Espionage Court. And so I was very pleased to see in these tweets that came out of the courtroom that the extradition happened refused, based exactly on the assessment that his detention conditions would be oppressive, given his state of health, and that it would very likely lead to his suicide. But now, at second sight, I realized that up to that point, the judgment confirms the entire narrative of the US prosecution, that basically investigative journalism, if it publishes information the government doesn't want to be published, then that regardless of public interest, then that will say Espionage. And the judge even went further and said, and by the way, it is also punishable under the Official Secrets Act of the UK. So now we're having a precedent on both sides of the Atlantic, and make no mistake, the Official Secrets Act has been stood model for many other secrecy acts in the whole Commonwealth, from Hong Kong, Singapore, and so on. I mean, up to Australia has a very draconian legislation on secrecy. And so we're setting a worldwide, you can easily say the former British Empire, which basically spun the whole world is strongly influenced by this emerging precedent that anyone, anyone, anywhere in the world, publishing any information that the government doesn't want to be published can be prosecuted. And I call it prosecuted because it is for political reasons and silenced through criminal law as a spy by one of those involved countries. And that is extremely dangerous because we are in such a complex society today that we cannot oversee and control what our governments are doing with our tax money and the power that we give to them unless we have a free press that can report to us when the governing powerful people abuse of their power and commit crimes. If it becomes a crime to tell the truth about this, then we are really living in a tyranny because we have lost the ability to exercise our democratic rights to control our government. So I'm not, and please, you can check my personal history, I'm not known for alarmist headline. This is the first time in a 20 year career that I really step out and I'm really being loud about it because it's urgent, it's alarming and it's fundamentally dangerous. This judgment sets this precedent. Now had the judge extradited Julian, then clearly his legal team would have appealed. Now, because he's not being extradited, the US has to appeal, if the US doesn't appeal, this precedent stands, right? And if they appeal, guess what? Only the medical question will be discussed at appeal unless a lawyer has the time to cross appeal. So unless that happens, which already is quite challenging because they would have to discuss with him, he's isolated in the prison, they don't have a lot of time to do that. If they don't have time to cross appeal, the only thing that will be discussed in an eventual appeal is the detention conditions in the US, are they oppressive? And the US can just make assurances to say, yes, okay, we see, you have certain doubts there, we make diplomatic assurances, she will not be exposed to special administrative measures or not social confinement or something like this. And then the High Court really does not have any arguments again anymore, not to extradite them and they would overturn that decision. Or, and I'm closing here because I'm getting long, but I think it's an important point to make, even if the US doesn't appeal or it loses the appeal, in the end, the decision stands that he will not be extradited for now, but not because he's right, just because he's too weak. So if ever the government should determine that his health is now better, they could ask for another extradition. They could again put him in extradition detention. If Assange leaves the UK, because the UK is the only country that's bound by that decision, if he goes to France, the US can immediately ask for extradition in France, move him from country to country, right? The UK could even say, well, you don't have a regular status here, so we release you, but you have to leave the country. So the only country where he's protected, he will lose, he'll perhaps go back to Australia and then the US will ask Australia for extradition and then he will be detention there for three years. And so you can see that playbook that Stratford came up with 10 years ago is playing out already for a decade before our eyes, and this judgment is no reason at all for anyone to be relieved, I think to the contrary. Thank you. Yes, Ray. Just a very brief comment. I'm going to quote two of my favorite Russians and I hope no one will put me in Poutine's pocket for doing so. First one is Fyodor Dostoevsky who commented in relation to this kind of thing that you can tell the degree of civilization of a certain nation by entering its prisons. How ironic it is that prison conditions in our country are so, so worse, so bad that this was one of the things that the judge cited as together with Julian's health as arguing against bringing him to the United States. The other thing, the other quote is from Alexander Solzhenitsyn who wrote the Gulag Archipelago and I just have two sentences from him and I'll quote them. In keeping silent about evil and burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. We are not simply protecting the trivial old age of the culprits. We are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. I'm concerned about new generations. They need to know the truth about this before it's too late. Thanks. Thank you and we're gonna go on but I feel like I should follow our procedure here and tell you what next week's forum is. So this is a very brief announcement. Next week's forum is going to be Science, Law and Criminal Legal System Reform with Kate Judson, Executive Director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences and our host will be Molly Schiffler. We hope to see you then but I'm not ending this meeting. There's still 66 participants who are hanging on your comments and wisdom. So I'm interested when you looked at the chat either Ray or Niels, do you want to respond to something that is near and dear to you? Maybe I can, I have maybe two remarks. I want to compliment what I said before about this judgment. I think what's also important is to see that the determination that during the science cannot be extradited. As I said, on the one hand, it confirms the concerns many people, including myself had about the prison conditions and you know, more generally but specifically in national security trials, state of health is deplorable. And anyone who has met him knows that he's a very strong person. He's very resilient. So how do you get a man who's in good health, who's very energetic, who's very determined? How'd you get him to a point where you can't extradite him anymore because he is so fraffled? That's not because they've treated him well. Obviously the judge didn't say that but it's a logical consequence. It must, I mean, he's been in the embassy and then in a British prison and when he entered the embassy, he was healthy and strong and now he is so fragile you can't extradite him. So what did you do to him? I mean, it confirms the very point that I confirmed with my medical team that he has been deliberately destroyed step by step through psychological stressors, emotional stressors, constant arbitrariness, constant isolation, constant threats.  And yes, Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, he was an extradition detention in the UK in a luxurious villa and Mrs. Thatcher brought him whiskey. But, you know, Julian Sanchez legally in exactly the same situation except he is not being held in the villa. And Pinochet's extradition was refused based on health grounds and he was immediately released. Now, Julian's is not. And the countries that wanted his extradition at the time at the Pinochet's, they actually protested against that determination but clearly the UK government there was very partial. So we can see that they're not dealing with this case fairly. Now, one last point I want to make is this judgment also confirms one more thing. It confirms that Julian was right all along that he couldn't leave the embassy freely as these governments falsely claimed because had he left freely, he would not have faced justice but injustice. He would have faced an extradition that now the judge determined was be unlawful. So he knew that. That's what he was afraid of. That's the only thing why he was in the embassy. He didn't want to go to the US and the judge confirmed you can't send him there. So he was right all along. There's no reason to say that he could have left the embassy freely at any time. He couldn't because he was under the threat of extradition. So again, I could go on, but Ray, you might have some things to say and I'm looking at some of the questions here. You know, I would just emphasize what you started out with Nilsa and that is that most Americans have been led to believe that we're dealing with a rapist here. That's a standard arrow in the quiver of corporate action.  And in reality, no accusations were ever made by the Swedish government. They wanted to wash their hands of it because if he came back to Sweden, he would stand trial and it would turn out that he was not accused of anything real. So the fact that, well, let me put it this way. I worked with William Casey when he was head of the CIA, but I didn't know until later that at the first cabinet meeting under Ronald Reagan, he said this, quote, we'll know when our public offensive has been successful when everything the American people believe is a lie, period, end quote. Now a friend of mine was there. She recorded it. She reported it contemporaneously to a Washington Post reporter. So I'm thinking of Bill Casey now, whether he's looking up or down at us and he's saying, wow, wow, wow. If 85, 90% of American people believe that Julian Assange is beyond the pale because he's a rapist, man, we succeeded beyond my rosiest imagination. That is deplorable. That is the state of the media now. And if you have a sixth the state or a fifth the state in terms of WikiLeaks, then that can be exposed. And that's why they're doing it. They don't want to expose it. They don't want it to be exposed for obvious reasons. So thanks again, Niels. I'm going to jump in. Great. If I can pick you back on this on the Swedish story one more time. You know, what really happened between these women and Julian, no one knows. I mean, they know, but no one else will ever know. But I think what's very important is that we have to stick to the law and the Swedish government have closed that case because they said they did not have enough evidence to charge him. Now, what does that mean? If the police questioned you and they investigated for nine years and they don't have enough evidence to charge you, it means by law you are innocent. You are presumed innocent until the opposite is proven beyond reasonable doubt. They didn't have enough, even enough evidence to charge him, not to convict it, but even to charge him for nine years. And I know from all the investigative proceedings they never had enough evidence. Obviously they didn't. So that actually ends the discussion. By law, he is presumed innocent end of discussion. Now, for all nerds that want to get into the details and the nitty-gritty of this case, we can do that. And I can prove to you all for how abusive this investigation was. But just that point, there's an end of discussion on this rape allegations because the government itself admitted there was not enough evidence to even charge him. And so I think that that is really, really important. And I've seen a question on what could, I think it was specifically, what could the German government do? I, you know, I want to expand it. What can other governments do? I think we should know that, you know, this is not a U.S. government issue. This is a, how are our current states and governments around the world actually functioning because they're all functioning basically in the same way. It's just that the U.S. government happens to be the most powerful one. So everybody talks about it. But it's, you know, I think it's an illusion to think that the German government has a different logic. There's a reason that no government except yet the previous Ecuadorian government actually stood up for Julian Assange because they all rely on the same way of working. And our job really, you know, in building arcs, if you allow me to take that is to build government systems that are sustainable in the future, that don't function that way, that don't rely on, we have to refuse secrecy. There must be confidentiality of private data and so on, but not secrecy. No, as soon as there is no way to have a oversight of the legality of what governments are doing or big corporations for that matter, clearly things will go wrong because all of us, all of us, there's not good people and bad people. All people, if they're not being controlled or given uncontrolled power with time, power corrupts. I don't know who said it first, but I think it was quite obvious early on in human history that that's just the fact, the scientific fact, not a moral fact. We need accountability. And if we have accountability early in the process, you can prevent almost anything. If you have radar controls on the highway, people will not speak. If you know there are no radars, people will speak. It's as simple as that. Not because they're bad people, just because there are people that are not being controlled. And so I think we have to develop smart systems by which we can supervise our supervisors that we can control them without creating a big brother society. So we need to be smart about building the arc that we already proposed, right? So we need transparency, we need supervision, we need oversight, but we also have to make sure that there's no overreach into our privacy. And I think that's going on now in the US in the last week illustrates how important all of these points are. And I don't think anyone has simple solutions. But what we know, we can't go on like this. We can't live with secrecy and we certainly cannot allow the truth to be criminalized. Amen. Well, I have to thank you on behalf of Anne who worked really hard and our team, the UU Forum Gang and Sherry Wright and the friends, Mark Miller. Thank you for all of the work that you did to make this beautiful event occur. But especially we have to thank our speakers. And both of you took a lot of time today with your busy schedules. We thank you so very much and we thank you for coming today. And I wanna thank the 66 participants who spent extra time wanting to learn more about it. At the end of the forum, I'm asking myself, what can I do? And you may be too, because this is a group that loves to inspire action. Well, contact Anne Batista. I gave you her email before and she has put it into chat. But there's also a national effort at theassangedefense.org, A-S-S-A-N-G-E, capital D, fence.org, co-chaired by Alice Walker of the Color Purple, Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers, Whistleblower, and Noam Chansky, co-author of Manufacturing Consent. Again, we talked to you about what is happening with next week, but I do wanna remind friends that we have a YouTube channel and it's called www.youtube.com, first spelled out Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. It is our UU YouTube channel. It usually takes a little bit of time to get it up, so don't get upset if you can't find it on day one, but it's really worth doing. And others asked if we could share what we have been streaming and recording. So I wish all of you great health, great determination, and a lot of guts to keep on working for justice. And in the words of the UUs, may it be so. Thank you, friends. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I think we will end the meeting at this time.


I get a lot of responses to my tweets. A lot of them are mean, like really mean. But I'll just let you read those on your own time. Today, I'm going to respond to some of the most interesting arguments against my tweets. Now, I tweeted, Who else thinks ending poverty on Earth is more important than billionaire space tourism? Well, there's got a lot of response. This is from L.E. May, who says Bezos just gave Chef Andre $100 million and another $100 million is given to another organization to feed the hungry. Okay, so what? I mean, for context, that's less than what Bezos makes in a day. And if we actually had a tax system that taxed his wealth, we wouldn't need his philanthropy. It's pure public relations for billionaires like Bezos to cover up their exploitive business practices and shield their wealth. Okay, here's one from John Woods.  It's not just space tourism. It's space period. You end poverty through jobs, not handouts. And the industry of space will produce jobs. Really? Space jobs? What are we talking about? Space jobs? Whatever jobs the industry of space is going to create won't be realized for years. If not decades. Right now, in the United States, really, on Earth, we've got a huge amount to do to take care of our people. We've got roads to build and sewers, pipes, and we've got daycare and childcare. Why don't we do that? And if Bezos or any other billionaire actually paid their full taxes, we could finance those jobs. So let me get this straight. Elon Musk increased his wealth by $6 billion in one day this week, but Tesla can't afford to let auto workers unionize? Got a response from Martin Muldoon who said, I'm a fan, Robert, but Tesla employees are benefiting enormously from stock options. I know that's what they all say, but in this case, it is true. Oh, come on. Elon Musk became the second richest person in the world after illegally threatening to take away stock options if employees unionized and firing staff after telling them they could take unpaid time off. The only way employees, whether they are in Tesla or any other company, actually protect themselves, have safe working environments, actually get a real good deal over long term is if they're unionized. They have power. Here's another one from Douglas Carr. Great pay, great benefits, and employee stock options. Why is a union necessary? Well, let me tell you why a union is necessary. Tesla has had 43 workers' rights violations filed against it since 2010. All workers benefit from the protection of a union, no matter their workplace. If Musk is so proud of his great working conditions, why is he so afraid of letting Tesla workers unionize? Here's another one I tweeted. Let's set the record straight. There is no labor shortage. There is a living wage shortage. Okay, that prompted some tweets. This is from some guy. So you admit a living wage leads to higher unemployment. Excuse me, paying people more doesn't lead to higher unemployment. In fact, a recent report just found that states that ended unemployment insurance early saw no significant rise in employment. And consumer spending dropped as a result, which is terrible for the economy. If wages at the bottom rise, because employers need to pay more to get the workers they need, that's not a problem. That's a victory, right? That's it for this roundup of Reich replies. Thanks to all of you who are engaging with our tweets with some real thought. To some of you with the less thoughtful responses, let's take a deep breath in and out. In and out. In and out.


One of the most common comments that I get on my videos is how do you stay focused for so long while studying? How can you sit there for four hours and maintain your focus not get distracted, etc? Let's break it down. Before we even start, if you're serious about maintaining deep focus and not getting distracted whilst you study, then you absolutely have to take your phone and throw it away somewhere far and out of sight and out of reach where you can't touch it. If you're not willing to get rid of your phone while you study, then you're always going to be distracted by it. It's Isaac Newton's fourth law of distraction, by the way. The first thing I do, which I think is really easy and often overlooked by other students, is just getting everything that you might need over the course of your study session and putting it on your desk before you sit down. That way you have no reason to leave your desk and get distracted somewhere else in the house or the library or wherever you are. Common things I get are a lot of coffee or tea or sparkling water, whatever it is that I want to drink to keep me going throughout the session. Then of course, snacks are essential as well for when I start to get peckish. I usually have some fruit with me, apples, tangerines, bananas, grapes, whatever. And then for example, let's say you need to do a bunch of writing with lots of different coloured pens for flow charts or diagrams or something like that.  If you need to at some point start using a textbook, then get that and put it on your desk as well, all from the very beginning. That way when you sit down, you're in the studying zone with everything you need around you and you have no reason to get up wander and get distracted somewhere else. Personally, for me, when I'm studying, I find that any time that I get up and off of my desk, that's when prime distraction hits. You know, my sister will come out of her room and she'll be like, hey, NASA, I want to chill for five minutes or I'll be tempted to check my phone or whatever. I just won't want to sit back down. And so the longer I can keep myself on my desk, the better I'm going to do over the long run. This honestly might be my hidden superpower. It's like a productivity hack that I swear nobody uses. Before any study day I have the night before or the day before I always, always, always decide what it is that I'm going to be doing the next morning. That way when I wake up, I brush my teeth, I have my breakfast, I chill and watch YouTube video, whatever. I'm not thinking about studying. I'm not worried about what I'm going to be studying. I'm just completely chill, relaxing and enjoying myself. Then when I sit down on my desk and it's time to get studying, I just check my schedule or my plan. And I look at what I told myself I was going to do the day before or the night before or whatever. This immensely reduces the decision fatigue around what should I study? When should I start? How long is it going to take me? How long should I sit down for? I just sit down and I study for a four-hour block. This reduction in the amount of time that I need in order to get studying makes studying easy and effortless. And beginning studying is often the hardest part. So if you can have these tips and tricks to sort of get you in that beginning zone, then the rest will just take care of itself. This is another easy one to do, but people just often forget about it. Obviously, we already talked about getting rid of your phone, but you can also use apps and software to blacklist websites like YouTube or Facebook or TikTok or whatever. You can also put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones to block out your environment.  There's so many things that we can do to change our surrounding environment, everything else around us actually sitting down to study that makes the studying easier and simpler to do. Also, just close all of your desktop apps that might get you distracted, maybe things like Steam, Discord, WhatsApp, Messenger, you name it. Whatever it is that might distract you, just close it. Get it out of sight and make it more difficult for yourself to just move your mouse and click. Something else that I like to do is whenever I sit down to study, I open a new tab on my browser on justgoogle.com. And that way, in the middle of my studying, when I click my browser in order to Google something that I wanted to check on, I'm not immediately faced with the last thing that I was doing on my computer like YouTube.com, for example, or researching flights for an upcoming holiday or online clothes shopping or whatever. I'm greeted with a blank Google page, which reminds me that, oh yeah, I actually clicked on Safari because I wanted to do something work related and I don't get distracted as easily. So studying in groups has always been and will always be a key component of my studying. The reason for this is that accountability is a really useful extrinsic, motivating factor that can help keep us focused and keep us studying. Having a study partner, whether that's in the library physically or on Zoom or in a study with me, focus group on Discord like we have over on my Patreon, the Karma Club, link in the description down below, can be so, so helpful. Just knowing that other people around you are working hard, focused, and studying can really help you study and stay focused yourself. I love having that accountability in my life because as soon as I start to lose sort of the internal motivation or internal drive to keep studying, I get the external motivation from the other people around me because I know that we're all going through the same thing, the same experiences at the same time. Now getting up and walking around every hour might seem counterintuitive to what I've been saying above, but I think it has its role. Changing your environment, the scenery that's in front of you, the atmosphere of what you've been staring at for a couple of hours, whether that's a textbook or a computer screen can be really, really helpful. You know, when you get to those points in the study session where no more information is entering your brain, the lines are like almost blurry and just nothing makes sense. Honestly, getting up to grab a cup of water, a cup of coffee, a snack, walking around a little bit, just seeing something else and thinking about something else besides what's in front of you makes a huge, huge difference. But don't make the mistake of taking your phone with you because then you just spend the whole time on your phone without getting actual rest and relaxation from the work that you were doing before and you're bound to get distracted by checking some social media app on your phone. Now getting up and walking around is not a waste of time.  Honestly, having a plan probably should have gone further up in my list. Plans are my best friend and if you don't already make plans for your studying, please start. I promise you're not going to regret making one and just helps make life so much easier. If at the beginning of your day, you make a skeleton or an outline of what you're going to be doing that day and what you're hoping to achieve by one hour of work, by two hours of work, etc. It can A, help you stay on track, but also B, motivate you as you complete those smaller tasks and breaking up your bigger day into those smaller tasks and pieces makes them much more manageable to do. I always say that I couldn't be nearly as productive as I am without planning. It helps me so much and if you don't already make them, I'd highly recommend you give it a go. And all right, that is it. Those are my five best tips for maintaining deep focus. I hope that you've enjoyed this video and happen to take one or two valuable things away from it. If you're interested in joining a community of like-minded people who are all hardworking, caring and supportive of each other with live study with means, random conversations, meme exchange and chats or whatever, check out the Patreon link in the description down below, join the Discord server and become part of the Karma Club family. And that's it from me. I'll catch you in the next one. Peace.


Bismillah al-Khmeri, may Salam al-Aqm al-Pakistan, welcome back to corporate governance. We are talking about the various implied factors and situations which tend to affect corporate governance. And today we are going to talk about the issues of governance related to implementation of risk management. Now all of these things are indirectly related to corporate governance and we see that these different factors and these different centers of focus have a very huge impact on business and organizations. And therefore it is very important that we keep them in consideration and see what are the pros and cons of such units or of such interventions or such perspectives of management. Now ladies and gentlemen in any good organization risk management is a very very important sub-center of the management framework. We see that risk managers and risk management basically proactively engages into creating scenarios whereby it is ensured that whatever fluctuations are taking place within the market they do not affect the company adversely and the company is well prepared to basically be flexible enough and to be accommodating enough so that they can go through those different fluxes which are created within the market at a national and international level and also at a sectoral level. Risk managers were unfortunately traditionally considered to be separate from the management and not regarded as an essential part of implementing the company strategy. Both financial and non-financial companies face a similar range of risk that need to be managed including operational, strategic and market risk. Again ladies and gentlemen just like I was mentioning that risk managers were not given pivotal positions in the previous decades but now the risk manager is a very pivotal individual in the core management team of any organization. We have seen that both in the financial and non-financial companies there are various risks which are involved and therefore it is very important to manage the operational strategic and market risk at an individual level. If they are not done we have seen what happened to Enron, we have seen what happened to various banks around the world many large banks closed down or were taken over and we have seen how different financial institutions have also gone bankrupt because they were not in tandem with the operational strategic and market risk of the time and therefore it is very important in corporate governance that all of this should be considered and communicated to the board and the top management so that they can proactively engage themselves in a way which would stabilize the organization. The aim is to ensure that risks are understood, managed and when appropriate communicated. So, all risks have to be understood and proper working has to be done and then they have to be managed and then most importantly which we tend to forget sometimes is that whenever appropriate they have to be communicated across the board, across the different segments and levels of management and effective implementation of risk management requires an enterprise wide approach rather than treating each business unit individually. So, when we are talking about risk then again if we take an example of the supply chain context then it is not one unit, one department or one employee that is being looked at. It is being looked at as a complete picture and therefore if the chain is as strong as its weakest link. So, most importantly in risk management weak links are identified and they are catered to and therefore then a very effective implementation tends to take place so that no business is adversely affected. The board should also review and provide guidance about the alignment of corporate strategy with risk appetite. To assist the board in its work it should also be considered a good practice that risk management and the control functions being dependent of profit centers. So, that is also extremely important and therefore what we see is that the risk unit basically has a metrics approach with all of the other departments and they work together to ensure that the corporate strategy has the durability and the flexibility and the cushion for a risk appetite and therefore they work from the top to the bottom level in the best possible way and they ensure that the organization is moving forward without the different flux factors and also the improbability of facing major losses across the strategies which is trying to implement in the market of the 21st century. The process of risk management and the results of risk assessments could be appropriately discussed again at the top level and at the board level. Corporate governance standards should be encouraged to include or improve references to risk management to raise awareness. So, again that is very important that we have to create the standards within the organization we have to create the parameters within the organization we have to set the upper and lower limits we have to understand what should be done and what cannot be done and where is the precipice and where is it the levels of risk that can be taken and again not to take blind risk whereby a whole organization which was established could face mega losses. So, all of this is extremely important and that again leads to good governance and corporate governance through the implementation of risk management. Thank you so much.


So as many of you know tomorrow is a very important day six more states will be voting this includes Michigan Which is crucial Washington State Mississippi, but regardless of what happens tomorrow? Bernie Sanders will continue on in this primary He has enough resources funds and grassroots organizers to stay in all the way until the convention And we are going to be fighting to make sure that Joe Biden is not the nominee because in the event He wins Donald Trump is going to get a second term That is almost a guarantee because Joe Biden is such a weak candidate However, since we are in this for the long haul since Bernie isn't going anywhere I don't believe that we kind of just sit back and tell ourselves that we did everything right It's really important that we be introspective and we try to figure out as it happens What's going wrong for us? What's going right for us and how we can adjust our strategy going forward and one thing that I must say is that Bernie Sanders? He has Phenomenal policies he is someone who I agree with on almost everything not every single policy, but almost everything and in terms of just Policy itself. We haven't had a candidate this left wing in American history That's been this close to actually becoming the Democratic Party nominee. So he's great when it comes to policy However, when it comes to strategy, that's where we we've really got to take a hard look in the mirror and understand What we can do differently and when it comes to Bernie Sanders He has got to really make a decision here either he is going to continue to play nice with the Democratic Party establishment and specifically Joe Biden and Lose or he's actually going to toughen up and go at them really hard and give them hell and Win because going forward. I can't see a path To victory for us if we continue carrying about the same way that we've been carrying on throughout the course of this primary And I'll give you a couple of examples. So Bernie Sanders Was talking to basically everyone on the Sunday shows, which is great. You've got to promote your agenda You've got a you know contrast differences between yourself and Joe Biden, but he's too nice to Joe Biden Here's an example, you know, if you're talking about taking on Trump and defeating Trump and Joe Understands and I understand that we have got to do everything possible to defeat Trump and I'll support Joe If he wins he'll support me if I win But going into states like Michigan going into Pennsylvania going into Wisconsin key battleground states These are all states that have been devastated by these terrible trade agreements and I fear very much You know if Joe is the candidate believe me Trump will and has already talked about Joe's record on trade I believe that we are the strongest campaign to defeat Donald Trump a because we have a grassroots movement that is Unparalleled be because we have a voting record that speaks to the needs of working families I believe that the United States has got to join every other major country on earth Guarantee health care to all people as a human right Help lead the effort on that help leave the effort to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour Help leave the effort to demand that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality The rich and the billionaire class stop paying their fair share of taxes Senator are you saying that Joe Biden will lose Michigan and other industrial Midwest states to President Trump if he's the nominee No, I'm not saying that and I've been asked that a million times that I believe Joe can beat Trump and if Joe is the candidate I'll do everything I can to make sure that he does but I think just looking at the facts If you're going into the industrial base of the United States of America the hot land of America And you voted for agreements that have devastated communities like Flint Detroit It it's gonna hard to make the case when Trump has made trade such an important part of his agenda now Trump lies all of the time I mean he is a pathological liars running a corrupt administration, but it will be hard I believe not to say that he can't do it, but it will be hard for Joe to defend the record On trade when it has had such a negative impact on the Midwest.  Oh, he's my friend He's a nice person and then when he actually gets to the criticism of Joe Biden You can tell that he's walking on eggshells like he's tiptoeing around the criticism instead of just directly saying it When that's not effective like this is a fight for our lives Literally and we are counting on you Bernie To win this so if you are going to be nice to Joe Biden like that It's just you're not helping any of us. So he said look I believe Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump and if Joe's the candidate I'll do everything I can to make sure that he does Except Joe Biden cannot beat Donald Trump if he's the nominee Donald Trump is going to easily beat him He's already, you know previewing some of these general election election attacks on Joe Biden And they're gonna be effective. There's they're going to resonate and here's the thing Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. Joe Biden is exponentially weaker than Hillary Clinton Exponentially more vulnerable less charismatic Than Hillary Clinton. So everything that we thought about Hillary Clinton We all kind of thought well There's nobody that the Democratic Party can run that would be worse than Hillary Clinton Actually, it's Joe Biden because there's nothing that will excite voters You can't really even cite a single policy that he supports at least with Hillary Clinton There was that excitement about the fact that you know, she'd be the first woman president But with Joe Biden, there's zero excitement So you've got to sound the alarm Bernie You've got to make it very clear for people who are watching that if we nominate Joe Biden We're handing Donald Trump the presidency for another four years now part of what I I think is happening Is that Bernie Sanders is genuinely worried that the Democratic Party is going to blame him for? President Trump's electoral victory right they did this in 2016 and he doesn't want that to happen again except What's going to happen is a foregone conclusion. You will be blamed. We will be blamed What's going to happen is the Democratic Party if they nominate Joe Biden they're going to lose and blame the left and then you know in 2024 2028 they're going to expect to Win with the same strategy and say how much you know, we've got to have a moderate and that's important We can't run too far to the left So they're not going to learn anything and they're not going to welcome you with open arms if you play You know their game and you hold hands and sing kumbaya with them That's just never going to happen So you can't play their game now I want to play another clip for you where I think Bernie Sanders has got a course correct here because what he says in his Criticism of Joe Biden It's too soft and he just he struggles to just come out and be mean and I get that He's a really nice person, but this is an election and Joe Biden is a disaster He is a disaster. So listen to what Bernie Sanders says in his criticism of Joe Biden Senator since Super Tuesday, you've been going after Joe Biden pretty hard on a number of issues. Take a look One of us in this race Led the opposition to the war in Iraq One of us led the opposition to disastrous trade agreements one of us has spent his entire life fighting against cuts in Social Security Senator now that this is a two-man race and you're gonna have a two-man debate next Sunday How hard do you go after Joe Biden without carving each other up and helping Donald Trump win reelection? Well, Chris, that's that's the right question Joe Biden is a friend of mine Joe Biden is a decent guy where Joe has said is if I win the nomination He'll be there for me when I have said if he wins the nomination I'll be there for him because we both recognize that we have a president who is a pathological liar And I say that without any joy in my heart Somebody who's running a corrupt administration Somebody apparently who has never read the Constitution of the United States and thinks he's above the law So Biden and I no matter who wins this thing will be together in defeating Trump But now that it is a two-way race It is important for the voters of this country to ask themselves two questions number one Which candidate is stronger in terms of being able to defeat Trump and number two what are the differences in a record Joe has been in Washington for a long time as have I and My point is when people see the records Joe voted for the war Iraq I opposed the war Iraq Joe voted for the Wall Street bailout I vigorously opposed the Wall Street bailout when you go to the Midwest we're in Michigan right now You go to Wisconsin you go to Pennsylvania people want to know about your views on trade Because disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PNTR with China cost this country over four million good paying jobs Decimated communities here in Michigan said I helped lead the opposition to those trade agreements Joe voted for those You have to stop saying that Joe Biden is your friend whenever Joe Biden criticizes you He's very smug. He's very arrogant and it's effective. He never says, you know what Bernie Sanders is my friend But here's X Y and Z reasons why you should vote for me over him. He never says that and Then you know, we've heard this same song and dance from Bernie Sanders over and over again He prefaces his criticism of Joe Biden by saying look I really like Joe Biden He's such a nice person, but you know when it comes to the Iraq war and his trade deals He'd be a disaster Except first and foremost you can't be nice to Joe Biden like that You've got to hit him and let people know what's at stake here We are going to lose the Trump if he's the nominee and second of all This is a very different race and what I want Bernie Sanders to acknowledge is that he's got to change up the strategy because he's One on the policy and when I say he's one on the policy I mean, he's convinced Democratic Party primary voters that his ideas are the best ideas I mean look at some of these exit polls and just take a look at this article from common dreams It says in every Super Tuesday state with exit polls majority of Democratic voters support eliminating private insurance And when you look at these exit polls here, even states where Joe Biden Demolished Bernie Sanders Medicare for all still won with large margins. It's still got at least 50% So we've won on the policy. We've won on the policy So now what people are clearly voting based on is who they think can beat Donald Trump So by you simply drawing policy differences between you and Joe Biden, that's not enough You have to connect that connect it to his weakness in a general election Because the entire time the Democratic Party establishment and media apparatus to be fair has made this a race about electability and Bernie Sanders started to really get the messaging right there, but never was sharp enough He has to make it very clear that this is about electability if you want to play by electability fine We just ran Hillary Clinton a moderate and lost moderates lose all the time Look at a John Kerry in 2004 Hillary Clinton in 2016 Do you want to roll the dice again? It is progressives who win Barack Obama won by Campaigning as a strong progressive now you can argue that he didn't live up to those progressive ideals but regardless he ran a progressive campaign and Won so if you want to excite the base you have to be progressive and Joe Biden isn't offering voters anything and They're going to stay home because they don't really perceive there to be any real difference that's meaningful between Joe Biden and Donald Trump you've got to stress this and For Bernie Sanders to still say the same thing that he said a couple of months ago It's not going to work now going forward Bernie has to change that and here's what I really want to stress Bernie has got to understand that he has to play hardball with the establishment Nothing that he can ever There's nothing he can say or do that's going to win them over and get them To appreciate his contribution to electoral politics There's no way that he can win them over you have to defeat them You have to crush them because that's what they're trying to do to you Bernie Sanders That's what they're trying to do to you and they're being successful because they have a lot of institutional advantages so you've got to take back the messaging and part of the reason why I want Bernie Sanders to harden up is because Anything that he grants any concession he makes to the establishment They're never going to make that same concession to him So just you know a week ago before Super Tuesday when it seemed very clear that Bernie Sanders You know if he didn't win an outright majority He was the front-runner to get a plurality of Pledge delegates going into the convention Well, what did Joe Biden say about that as this headline from Vox points out Biden says he'll contest the Democratic nomination if no one gets a majority of delegates if Sanders leads in delegates But doesn't have a majority Biden said he'll fight for the nomination now contrast that with this headline from Newsweek where Bernie Sanders says He'll drop out if Biden gets a plurality coming into the Democratic convention Now I'm not saying that Bernie Sanders plays dirty to the extent that he is going to try to convince Super delegates To steal the nomination away from Biden Biden if he gets more votes Because I think that's just that's just undemocratic What I want to point to here is the problem that Bernie Sanders has in giving up his leverage, right? You have so much leverage right now You have so much leverage and you're giving it up when you don't have to like what you can do Even if it is going to lead to nothing you can say I'm not going anywhere I will contest this convention unless we have a Democratic nominee who believes in Medicare for all because in every single state Medicare for all won. So if I'm not at the top of the ticket, we need someone who supports Medicare for all So I'm not dropping out unless Joe Biden unequivocally is on tape saying I will fight for Medicare for all and introduce a bill on Day one now, we don't have to believe him We don't have to believe that he's going to fight for it at all because I don't think that he will Healthstock shot up after Super Tuesday when he was victorious but what you have to do is Understand the immense amount of leverage that you have and use it to your advantage like part of the reason why the Republican establishment in 2016 couldn't fuck over Donald Trump was because Donald Trump was willing to play hardball I mean think about this when there was talk of a contested convention to try to steal the nomination away from Donald Trump What did Donald Trump do back in 2016 or 2015 more specifically? He said I'm gonna run third party. I'm gonna run third party, right? That's what you have to do and even if you don't believe that Don't give away your leverage and I want to say this to Voters as well because everyone is so quick to say, you know what sure. I'll support Joe Biden. I hate him Here's all the criticisms, but I'll support him if he's the nominee even if that's true You can't give away your leverage. You have to make the Democratic Party establishment fearful You have to make them realize that if they don't vote For the person who's the strongest against Donald Trump, they're going to lose they can't just you know Expect to keep doing the same thing and getting our support Like you've got to let them know that your power will be exercised in a way that isn't going to help them But I see so many people like so willing to fall in line and say well, of course, you know I'm saying all this about Biden now, but I'll vote for him Don't say that yet Even if you're going to do that and the same's true for Bernie Sanders like here's a problem with electoral politics and why the left loses since so much is at stake, you know, and I think that a lot of the left rightfully believes in harm reduction we Want to make sure that we Make it clear we're compassionate like we're not gonna do anything that hurts people more so than they're already being hurt But at the same time You need leverage you have to use the power that you have the minimal amount of power that you have in electoral politics to make it Very clear that the establishment cannot continue to steamroll you and you're not just gonna get up and fall in line and support them Like even if you plan on voting for Joe Biden if he's the nominee don't say that right now Don't say that right now. You're in a primary and the Democratic Party is going to put up someone that overall is gonna lose to Donald Trump I mean it look all of us who follow politics It doesn't matter what we do what matters is what the average person the disaffected non-voter does and if they See that it's between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and they don't really think there's a true difference between these two people They don't believe their lives are going to change and it's not worth standing in line for five to six hours They're just gonna stay home, right and nothing you say or do will be able to convince them voter apathy is a real problem It's a real problem that we have to deal with so what I want people to understand on the left is that we have leverage We just have to know how to use it and stop giving it away and play hardball Stop trying to get the Democratic Party to like us stop trying to court them We need to be in a position to where they're courting us They're trying to win us over and it's not the other way around and you know the media plays us like fiddle sometimes I've got to admit that I mean with this whole Elizabeth Warren thing And you know the snake emojis the way that they set this up was that we are the ones who are Supposed to be courting Elizabeth Warren for an endorsement when think about this This is someone who wants to run for president in 2024. She's a multi-millionaire white woman She's gonna be perfectly fine But we're supposed to be really nice right now to Elizabeth Warren and we're supposed to court her and Send her positive messages in this time of grieving We are the ones who have leverage without us the Democratic Party can never win another election again Now if you don't want to play hardball like that if you don't want to be dirty, that's fine But understand if you give away your leverage then the Democratic Party is Essentially going to realize they can crush you and it's not gonna hurt their chances electorally speaking, right? You're telling them. You know what? It's okay. If you rig it It's okay. If you crush me at the end of the day, I'm gonna fall in line like a good little soldier and support the Democratic nominee Regardless of who it is I mean if you put up a clone of Donald Trump with a d next to his name I'll support that individual because I believe that you know harm reduction is the best strategy And you may be right about that But there's a time and place For all of that if you are gonna fall in line, there's a time and place for that now is not the time now Is the time to absolutely be disruptive and loud and make it very clear that the Democratic Party establishment doesn't control you You are a free agent and you're gonna make a decision That's best for you and voting for Joe Biden is not an option and you will not vote for Joe Biden Even if you are say you won't right now Do you understand what I'm what I'm talking about like we just we have to acknowledge that if we're gonna really focus on Electoral politics and be hyper focused on it like we have been on the left Then we can't play nice with the Democratic Party establishment and this you know going back to Bernie Sanders This is true for him as well You have to make it very clear that you're gonna play hardball with them and they're gonna hate you But that's fine because they're never gonna love you It doesn't matter what you say or do you will never win them over?  You can't be nice enough to the capitalists and win them over You've got to fight as hard as you possibly can and even if we fight really hard It still might not be enough But know that we did it by being as fierce and ferocious and relentless as we possibly can be and we didn't Give them permission to fuck us over essentially we didn't give up our leverage when it was too early So this is just you know to kind of summarize this and wrap this entire message in a bow Bernie really as much as I love him We've got to show him tough love and let him know Playing nice with Joe Biden is unacceptable at this point in time if you want to win you can't be nice You can't say Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump. Maybe Bernie believes that but he's not gonna beat Donald Trump, right? And you've got to make it very clear what's at stake if voters care about electability You have to make it clear that Joe Biden is un-electable. He's un-electable use whatever you can The hunter Biden Controversy and that conflict of interest Joe Biden's cognitive decline because these are things that aren't just going to go away If we don't talk about them, right? There are some things that you can't touch that the Democratic Party establishment will screech at the top of their lungs If you talk about but guess what Trump's gonna talk about it and that's regardless if we talk about it or not Like if we don't say it it's not like Donald Trump will just say oh well since Democrats didn't talk about hunter Biden scandal I can't talk about that. They're gonna talk about it now I get that Bernie doesn't want to be blamed for basically giving this attack to Republicans as he was blamed for attacks against Hillary Clinton with Corruption, but you've got to understand the Republican Party will do whatever they can to win They are ruthless and if we just adopt a fraction of their ruthlessness our odds will improve drastically so all that I'm saying is We can't be nice nice guys finish last Bernie and we've got to play hardball with the establishment and we've got to Absolutely give them hell be loud be disruptive Because if we don't we just can't win. That's our only chance is being Fighters and not backing down not giving away our leverage if we have a shot That's our only shot is being tough and I really hope that going forward Bernie Sanders acknowledges the importance of this and you know, he tries to Step out of his comfort zone and actually be really fierce in his criticisms of Joe Biden because Reiterating time and again that he's your friend is not convincing voters You know, you're making the case for him by saying why you disagree with Biden on policy But he's such a nice guy. You're not helping yourself. You've got to be tough if we want a chance