Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is due to appear in a London courtroom today for a second hearing on his extradition to the United States. Assange will likely appear by video link from the hospital wing of the prison where he is housed. The extradition hearing is linked to charges he conspired with former intelligence analyst Bradley Manning to hack a Pentagon computer.

To some people, like Fox News’ Judge Napolitano, Julian Assange is a hero. Victory Girls’ Kim wrote about Judge Naps fetish for Assange and you can read it here. To others, like me, Assange is a villain who endangered the lives of Americans and others. No matter what you think of Mr. Assange, he brought this whole stramash on himself, by himself.

Julian Assange is a narcissistic, self-promoting loser, just like Bradley/Chelsea Manning and leaker Edward Snowden. All three believe they are crusading saviors when they put others’ lives at risk. And, Judge Napolitano is still defending Assange. Late last night, he wrote this about Assange and Manning:

Yet, back in 2010, Assange arranged to receive and publish stolen copies of top secret military materials that revealed American military personnel in Afghanistan at their worst. It showed them knowingly killing innocent civilians — and doing so gleefully. The data that Assange revealed had been stolen for him by an Army private then named Bradley Manning. Manning was tried and convicted of the theft and was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison, much of it in solitary confinement. In January 2017, President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to time served.

If this sounds a bit like history repeating itself from the Nixon years, it is. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a civilian employee of the Nixon Department of Defense, revealed that he had stolen thousands of pages of top secret materials showing that former President Lyndon B. Johnson and some of his generals had serially lied to the American public and to Congress about the Vietnam War.

Look, if American military personnel “knowingly killing innocent civilians — and doing so gleefully”, there are appropriate processes to handle them. How many other innocent lives did Assange/Manning put at risk by releasing this information? I think Judge Naps is missing the larger point. Is it your First Amendment right to steal information that puts others’ lives at risk? That would be a hard pass for me.

Now, pro-Assange protestors are gathering outside the courthouse where Assange will not appear live. Here is how SputnikNews.com reported the situation:

Dozens of supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gathered on Thursday in front of Westminster Magistrate Court in London where the second hearing over his extradition is about to begin.

The people are holding bright placards with different slogans such as “Free Julian Assange,” “1984 is So Yesterday,” “Free Assange, Jail War Criminals,” “Defend Free Speech,” “Hands off Assange,” “Free Assange, free press.”

The hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court is to consider two extradition requests: the one of Sweden, where Assange is wanted on sexual assault charges, and the other of the United States over charges of a cyber attack on a government computer that led to a massive leak of classified data.

The hearing will be held after WikiLeaks earlier in the day expressed concerns about Assange’s condition as he had been moved to a health ward of a high-security prison, Belmarsh, where he has been serving a 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012.

If Julian Assange’s health is at risk, he probably caught a nasty bacteria while smearing his own feces on the wall of the Ecuadoran Embassy. Don’t forget, it took the Ecuadorians seven years and a change in leadership to boot the foul Assange out of their Embassy.

RT Media (formerly, Russia Today) reported on Assange this morning:

Poor Julian Assange. If he were truly a crusading savior, he would stand and face the music. He is not a savior. He is a coward. He is just like his co-conspirator Bradley Manning.

**Update** – Lawyers for Julian Assange have informed the court that he is too ill to even appear by videolink.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.org/Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina/Creative Commons License 2.0