Around 8pmest every night(I swear)
Details on the strange death of a former Chilean president
The death of former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva is that country's equivalent of the John F. Kennedy assassaination: a national mystery around which so much speculation circulates that no truth will probably ever be known. On a January day in 1982, Frei checked into the hospital in the capital, Santiago, for what should have been a routine operation. Hours later, he was dead. His family and supporters believe he was poisoned. A December 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday offers odd details about what happened next -- including an in-hospital autopsy -- that will only further stoke the conspiracy theories.
The cable offers further details about the president's:
Less than one hour after his death, doctors from the Catholic University Pathological Anatomy Department came to Clinica Santa Maria and performed an autopsy of Frei without the family's consent. The highly unusual autopsy was allegedly performed in the hospital room where Frei died, using a ladder to hang the body upside down in order to drain bodily fluids into the bathtub. Some organs, and in particular those whose chemical compositions might indicate poisoning, were removed and destroyed, and the body was embalmed.
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What is portrayed in the cable as diplomatic frustration, however, may well seem like U.S. reticence to help in Chile. American officials were intimately involved in trying to stoke unrest in the Chilean military to spark a coup -- and subsequent administrations continued to back Pinochet once he came to office, though this position had begun to shift by the time of Frei's death.
Greg Mitchell Explains Why The Mainstream Press Is So Threatened By WikiLeaks
In an excerpt from your book you discuss the feud between the New York Times and Julian Assange. Where do you stand with regards to Bill Keller's recent controversial piece for the Times Magazine?
What you have to keep in mind with the Times is that Keller says over and over again that the Times was not partners with Assange, and kept its distance, and he rejects Assange's saying that he could play these newspapers like puppets and that he was a puppet master. Keller can swear up and down that that is not true, but in reality, the Times was collaborating with Assange for massive coverage, from the war logs to cablegate. He can say they weren't partners but in reality the Times was very happy to take the lead on covering and publishing Wikileaks stuff all year.
For Keller to turn around and completely dump on Assange, in the language he used, I think, has drawn him scorn from a lot of quarters -- not so much for the facts in the piece, or in his opinion, which he has a right to obviously, but in the way he expressed it. It has really brought criticism from so many people.
Then, in addition, he revealed -- beyond what anyone knew -- the extent to which the Times showed the cables to the State department, and then managed to kill some of them [on account of that.] Guardian said they didn't show anything to the State department, so it showed maybe a little too much New York Times cooperation with the State department to not run certain things.
His piece got an awful lot of criticism across the spectrum, so I'm not sure his piece did him or the New York Times a lot of good.
Do you find that WikiLeaks presented a profoundly different sort of journalism -- if you in fact think it is a sort of journalism?
It's completely different because the documents are coming in bulk, they are coming to an outside source -- first WikiLeaks, and now there will be others. It turned open to the public. In the case of WikiLeaks, they have a revised model where they worked both with the media and apart from the media.
I think what angers a lot of people who cover the media, and people who may be more sympathetic to what WikiLeaks is doing, is when the press sort of acts like they don't do this sort of thing or they haven't done this sort of thing for decades. When they get their own leaks, they're not in bulk, they're not 200 cables at a time, but their reporters every week are breaking stories based on classified documents and highly classified information.
And yet, on their editorial pages or in their columns, they often attack WikiLeaks for going too far or releasing classified information, and that people should be arrested or prosecuted. And yet you have newspapers -- the New York Times certainly is at the forefront -- who are always accepting leaks from national security people and putting them on the front page, and they call it journalism and in the public interest.
I think it is the whole thing of being the gatekeepers. The mainstream press wants to be, and always has been, gatekeepers. They want to print the leaks, they want to decide what is important, they want to be able to patrol the information, they want to be able to decide what the public needs to know -- and then hide other things. They've often gotten great criticism over "why haven't they done this?", "why did they do that?", "who are they protecting?" and "why do they protect their sources to such an extent that it raises suspicions?"
So their role as gatekeeper is extremely threatened by this. WikiLeaks was able to go from different paper to different paper and release documents, so even small papers in Norway or Lebanon or wherever are breaking stories because WikiLeaks can send cables to them that are extremely relevant or blockbuster, which these news outlets can then use, and it totally is not controlled by the major mainstream outlets.
It's a whole new world, and it sets up this odd relationship and the odd responses that you see from many mediums. It's not unusual to see on the same day in a newspaper -- and I'm thinking of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times -- where on their editorial page they are blasting WikiLeaks left and right, and on the front page they are running a story based on the cable, and how great these cables are, when it's bombshell stuff.
It's really a contradiction, but it certainly makes it interesting
Collen Rowley: NYT's Keller Disparages Assange
Yet, while portraying Assange as a somewhat unstable and unreliable fellow, Keller leaves out his own background which would be relevant for readers evaluating why Keller might take such a dismissive attitude toward WikiLeaks' revelations of war crimes in Iraq. Though you wouldn't learn it from reading last Sunday's article, Keller was one of the prominent American journalists who jumped on President George W. Bush's pro-Iraq War bandwagon when that was the "smart" career move.
In February 2003, Keller declared himself a member of "The I-Can't-Believe-I'm-a-Hawk Club," justifying Bush's planned invasion. "We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war -- protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East -- but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold," Keller wrote.
Keller expressed pride that his pro-invasion contingent was led by the "eloquent" British Prime Minister Tony Blair and included "op-ed regulars at this newspaper [the New York Times] and The Washington Post, the editors of The New Yorker, The New Republic and Slate, columnists in Time and Newsweek."
In other words, many of the top careerist journalists (as well as politicians) -- many of them "baby-boom liberals," as Keller noted -- had finally seen the light. They were ready to cheer on Bush's war of choice even if it did violate international law. After all, at the time, there was no career downside in going with the pro-war flow.
Rationalizing his decision to join the war-hawk club, Keller also managed to get nearly every imaginable point wrong. Keller praised Secretary of State Colin Powell's "skillful parsing of the evidence" on Iraq's WMD. But that speech to the United Nations turned out to be replete with lies and distortions, so much so that Powell later deemed it a "blot" on his record.
Keller wagered that Bush would win a second U.N. vote authorizing the invasion. However, facing overwhelming defeat in the Security Council, Bush pulled the draft resolution and opted instead for his "coalition of the willing."
Keller envisioned scenes on Al Jazeera showing "American soldiers being welcomed by Iraqis as liberators. The illicit toxins are unearthed and destroyed. Persecuted Kurds and Shiites suppress the urge for clan vengeance." Events didn't exactly work out that way.
What's also remarkable about Keller's article is that he joined the war-hawks club with full knowledge that he was advocating violations of international law. "Almost all of the hesitant hawks go out of their way to disavow Mr. Bush's larger agenda for American power even as they salute his plan to use it in Iraq," Keller wrote. "What his admirers call the Bush Doctrine is so far a crude edifice built of phrases from speeches and strategy documents, reinforced by a pattern of discarded treaties and military deployment. It consists of a determination to keep America an unchallenged superpower, a willingness to forcibly disarm any country that poses a gathering threat and an unwillingness to be constrained by treaties or international institutions that don't suit us perfectly."
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So, given this background, it is valid to ask: Is the New York Times committed to informing the American people about the actions of their government or is it more concerned about keeping its place at the table of the powerful?
As Keller admits in his Assange article, "the journalists at the Times have a large and personal stake in the country's security." He says they are "invested in the struggle" against terrorism, a strategy that Keller insists is aimed at "our values and at our faith in the self-government of an informed electorate." That sounds a lot like a reprise of Bush's old canard that the terrorists "hate our freedoms," rather than the more rational explanation that they hate the long history of U.S. interference in the Middle East.
But the point may get close to the real reason for Keller's disdain for Julian Assange -- because Assange and WikiLeaks represent a much purer commitment to the core tenets of journalism, including the principle of objectivity, than does the New York Times. The Times sees itself inextricably -- and justifiably -- intertwined with the various strands of American power. Assange and WikiLeaks see themselves committed to getting out the facts.
WikiLeaks: Suleiman Is Israel's Choice To Replace Mubarak
"The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites—and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt’s torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt — Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib — was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself.
... In October 2001, Habib was seized from a bus by Pakistani security forces. While detained in Pakistan, at the behest of American agents, he was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly. He was then turned over to the CIA, and in the process of transporting him to Egypt he endured the usual treatment: his clothes were cut off, a suppository was stuffed in his anus, he was put into a diaper—and 'wrapped up like a spring roll'. In Egypt, as Habib recounts in his memoir, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, immersed in water up to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard that his blindfold was dislodged, revealing the identity of his tormentor: Suleiman."
Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo
Mubarak knew that Suleiman would command an instant lobby of supporters at Langley and among 'Iran nexters' in Washington - not to mention among other authoritarian mukhabarat-dependent regimes in the region. Suleiman is a favourite of Israel too; he held the Israel dossier and directed Egypt’s efforts to crush Hamas by demolishing the tunnels that have functioned as a smuggling conduit for both weapons and foodstuffs into Gaza.
According to a WikiLeak(ed) US diplomatic cable, titled 'Presidential Succession in Egypt', dated May 14, 2007:
"Egyptian intelligence chief and Mubarak consigliere, in past years Soliman was often cited as likely to be named to the long-vacant vice-presidential post. In the past two years, Soliman has stepped out of the shadows, and allowed himself to be photographed, and his meetings with foreign leaders reported. Many of our contacts believe that Soliman, because of his military background, would at least have to figure in any succession scenario."
Cable: Suleiman is Israel's preferred successor in Egypt
Cable: Israel pressures Suleiman to close Gaza's 'feeding tube' tunnels
Cables suggest Suleiman handling Egyptians as he has handled Palestinians
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UPDATE Google Executive Wael Ghonim in Tahrir Square & the Mubarak Regime's Repression of Bloggers
He was seized in the Egyptian capital when he was with tens of thousands of protesters in the Square. Al Jazeera reported Ghonim was "picked up by three plainclothes men on the street, pushed into a car and taken off for interrogation by state security members."
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The spark Ghonim is providing really is not surprising. Many Egyptians who are part of the revolution were initially moved to action when Khaled Said, a blogger, was beaten to death by police in an internet café in Alexandria in June of 2010.
Bloggers are and have, when they are most effective at stirring people to political or social action, been treated as enemies of the state by police or security forces in Egypts. They have been explicitly targeted by the Mubarak regime.
A cable that was appropriately released on the same day of Ghonim’s release details an incident involving the arrest and detention of a group of thirty activists and bloggers on the morning of January 15, 2010. 10CAIRO99 notes the group was on the way to "Naga Hamadi to visit the families of those killed in the January 6 sectarian shootings." The families were Coptic Christians.
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Abbas has been a target ever since he began to post videos of police torture. He was arrested and released by the Egyptian Army on February 4. That day he tweeted that he "was being stopped [at] every single checkpoint" and "we are getting arrested every five minutes now for looking like foreigners and having a camera and a laptop."
The week of his arrest, a November 2008 cable, 08CAIRO2371 , which was covered nicely by Foreign Policy, was believed to show how US diplomats had worked to get Abbas’ YouTube account reinstated by Google. Although his name is redacted in the cable, CNET said it thought the redacted name was Abbas’:
Prominent Egyptian blogger XXXXXXXXXXXXX, contacted us November 17 to report that YouTube removed from his website two videos exposing police abuses -- one of Sinai bedouin allegedly shot by police and thrown in a garbage dump during the past week's violence (ref A), and the other of a woman being tortured in a police station. XXXXXXXXXXXXX told us that YouTube is also preventing XXXXXXXXXXXX from posting new videos, and asked us for assistance in urging YouTube to re-post his removed videos and reinstate his access to uploading new material. XXXXXXXXXXXXX said XXXXXXXXXXXXXX has tried to contact Google, but has not received a response.
In December 2007, DRL and Embassy Cairo worked to convince Google to restore XXXXXXXXXXXXX' YouTube access after a similar incident. We believe that a similar Department intervention with Google representatives could help in restoring XXXXXXXXXXXXX' access again. XXXXXXXXXXXXis an influential blogger and human rights activist, and we want to do everything we can to assist him in exposing police abuse. XXXXXXXXXXXXX' post of a video showing two policemen sodomizing a bus driver was used as the main evidence to convict the officers in November 2007 (ref C).
The most interesting part of 08CAIRO2371 is perhaps this section:
(SBU) The group included bloggers, journalists, activists from secular opposition parties such as El-Ghad and the Democratic Front Party and movements such as "Kifaya" and "April 6. A lawyer for the group confirmed that a French activist was among the detainees. Some of the detainees are participants in Freedom House's "New Generation" program which provides training for young activists. One member of the group departed for Washington January 18 to participate in a Project on Middle East Democracy program. Contacts confirmed that activist and El-Ghad party member Israa Abdel Fattah was also part of the group. (Note: Abdel Fattah was the subject of headlines in April 2008 when she was arrested and detained for 17 days after her call for an April 6 general strike on Facebook attracted almost 70,000 members (ref B). Following her release, she renounced her activities in a television interview, and has remained out of public view until now. End note.)
As Egyptian Army Cracks Down, Leaked Cables Shed Light on Its Gov’t Loyalties, Internal Rifts
Recently released U.S. embassy cables paint a portrait of an Egyptian military led by a sycophantic defense minster with little interest in economic or political reform. In recent weeks, that official, Mohamed Tantawi, has been on the phone regularly with U.S. military officials, who view the Egyptian army as a crucial conduit for change and continued stability.
One cable describes mid-level army officers as "disgruntled [1]" and particularly critical of Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi, whom they saw as too subservient to Mubarak’s regime (The New York Times has a piece citing parts of the cables [2], but doesn’t link to them. We found the full cables on the Guardian’s site.):
These officers refer to Tantawi as "Mubarak's poodle," he said, and complain that "this incompetent Defense Minister" who reached his position only because of unwavering loyalty to Mubarak is "running the military into the ground." He opined that a culture of blind obedience pervades the MOD where the sole criteria for promotion is loyalty, and that the MOD leadership does not hesitate to fire officers it perceives as being "too competent" and who therefore potentially pose a threat to the regime.
cable 05CAIRO8938
- (C) The Egyptians have a long history of threatening us with the MB bogeyman. Your counterparts may try to suggest that the President,s insistence on greater democracy in Egypt is somehow responsible for the MB,s electoral success. You should push back that, on the contrary, the MB,s rise signals the need for greater democracy and transparency in government. The images of intimidation and fraud that have emerged from the recent elections favor the extremists both we and the Egyptian government oppose. The best way to counter narrow-minded Islamist politics is to open the system. The FBI could serve as a resource and partner ) if indeed you are willing -- in professionalizing the Egyptian security services and modernizing their investigative techniques. This would enhance the credibility of the security apparatus and remove an arrow from the Islamists, quiver.
Glenn Greenwald: Obama's man in Cairo
Given the long-obvious fact that the Obama administration has been working to install Suleiman as interim leader as a (dubious) means of placating citizen anger, the above-referenced NYT article today offers a long and detailed profile of the new Egyptian "Vice President." Unfortunately, the paper of record wasn't able to find the space to inform its readers about Suleiman's decades-long history as America's personal abducter, detainer and torturer of the Egyptian people, nor his status as Israel's most favored heir to the Mubarak tyranny (though the article did vaguely and euphemistically acknowledge that "the United States has certainly had long ties with Mr. Suleiman" and that "for years he has been an important contact for the Central Intelligence Agency").
Suleiman's repression and brutality -- on behalf of both the U.S. and Mubarak -- has been well-documented elsewhere (The New Yorker's Jane Mayer was the first to flag it after the Egyptian uprising, while ABC News recounted how he once offered to chop off the arm of a Terrorist suspect to please the CIA; see also the above-linked Al Jazeera Op-Ed, which provides additional details of Suleiman's personal taste for overseeing torture). As I noted yesterday, there's a case to be made for the Obama administration's support of Suleiman; it's the same case used to justify our 30-year active propping up of Mubarak, along with the dictators of Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, and so many other places (and "torture-by-proxy" seems still to be an important part of U.S. policy in the region). But whatever one's views are on that conduct, no discussion of the U.S.'s current pro-Suleiman policy -- and certainly no purported media profile of Suleiman -- is complete without at least some mention of his status as Mubarak's torturer-in-chief and domestic oppressor, and of the Israelis' deep desire to see him rule Egypt. Does anyone dispute the central relevance of those facts?
Today's Times article does a decent job of conveying how unwilling Suleiman is to bring about anything resembling a real transition to democracy, how indifferent (if not supportive) the Obama administration seems to be about that unwillingness, and how dangerously that conduct is fueling anti-American sentiment among the protesters. But the fact that American policy has "changed" from imposing Mubarak on that country to imposing someone with Suleiman's vile history and character belongs at the forefront of every discussion, especially ones purporting to examine who he is. Praising Suleiman for his "valued analysis" and commitment to fighting The Terrorists while neglecting to mention these other critical facts -- as today's NYT article does -- is misleading on multiple levels.
What you missed in Informationthread 54 :
A HUGE, BIG, AMAZING tip o' the hat to Greg Mitchell for giving me permission to repost his awesome: "Cablegate" to Date: A Unique List of What's Been Revealed
Joshua Norman at CBS News "How WikiLeaks Enlightened Us in 2010"
Glenn Greenwald's What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010
Here is a list of what Wikileaks has released on the countries currently having the people rise up( Thanks to WL Central ):
Tunisia
2011-01-04: Nonoperational Site Update: Wrath of Anon in Tunisia
2011-01-14 Tunisia: Ben Ali Out, Mohamed Ghannouchi Out
2011-01-15 What the US state cables on Tunisia said
2011-01-17 Slim Amamou named Tunisia's Secretary of Youth and Sports
2011-01-17 Tunisia's new government
2011-01-17: Comments on the new national government formed in Tunisia
2011-01-18 Ahmed Hashem El-Sayed dies in Alexandria hospital from self-immolation wounds
2011-01-18 Reaction to Tunisia's new government
2011-01-19 Unrest in Arab States [Update 1]
2011-01-21 Ben Ali has used Europe's prejudices
2011-01-24 Tunisia today: "It’s not a unity government, it’s a fake unity government"
2011-01-27 Tunisia protests continue as a warrant is issued for Ben Ali
2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
Egypt
2011-01-16 Protests in Egypt
2011-01-17 Egyptian man sets himself on fire [UPDATE: 1]
2011-01-18 Ahmed Hashem El-Sayed dies in Alexandria hospital from self-immolation wounds
2011-01-19 Unrest in Arab States [Update 1]
2011-01-25 Revolution Day in Egypt
2011-01-26 Week of "rage" in Egypt sees casualties, global support [UPDATE 1]
2011-01-27 Mubarak blinks as Egyptian protests continue for third day
2011-01-28 Egypt Cables - New Releases [UPDATE 12]
2011-01-28 Cable: Qatar on the Israeli-Palestine talks, Egypt and Iran
2011-01-28 Egypt is on fire
2011-01-28 Cable: President Mubarak in Washington
2011-01-28 Cable: Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread
2011-01-28 Cable: Mubarak discusses Iran and a "split" within Arab ranks
2011-01-28 Cable: Assessing support for Mohammed El Baradei
2011-01-28 Cable: Police brutality and poor prison conditions in Egypt
2011-01-28 Cable: Police torture in Egypt
2011-01-28 Mubarak refuses to step down
2011-01-28 Cable: Egypt's Emergency Law
2011-01-28 Cable: Political arrests of Muslim Brotherhood
2011-01-28 Cable: The Amir of Qatar discusses Syria, Egypt, and Iran
2011-01-28 Cable: Egypt displeased with number and tone of U.S. human rights recommendations
2011-01-29 No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
2011-01-29 Mubarak swears in new PM and VP as unrest persists
2011-01-29 Who is Egypt's new Vice President?
2011-01-30 Arab Totalitarians want Tech for National Security Emergencies
2011-01-30 Al Jazeera no longer welcome in Egypt
2011-01-30 Egyptian government orders Al Jazeera shutdown
2011-01-30 Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
2011-01-31 Cable: Egyptian April 6 activist's democracy goals "highly unrealistic"
2011-01-31 Egypt's Military jockeys to maintain Longstanding Grip on Power
2011-02-01 Army Vows Not to Shoot as Protesters make Million Man Marches in Cairo, Alexandria Today [UPDATE: 2]
2011-02-01 WikiLeaks Cables Show Mubarak Not Very Open to Reforms or Freedoms for Egyptians
2011-02-02 Food Crisis in Egypt
2011-02-02 Pro-Mubarak Forces and Police Thugs Attack Journalists
2011-02-03 Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
2011-02-03 Marietje Schaake on the situation in Tunisia and Egypt
From Informationthread 52 we learned these things:
Kevin Gosztola from The Nation: WikiLeaks Cables Show Mubarak Not Very Open to Reforms or Freedoms for Egyptians [UPDATE 4]
Al Jazeera English Blacked Out Across Most Of U.S.
Wadah Khanfar, Dirctor General of Al Jazeera writes an amazing article that you should read RIGHT NOW Al Jazeera English Should Be Available on American Television
Jeremy Scahill writes A MUST READ Washington Embraces Al Jazeera
From May 19, 2008 NYTimes Al Jazeera English Tries to Extend Its Reach
What we learned in Informationthread 51 :
Dylan Ratigan video with transcript on Manning's treatment
The Scandal Everybody Seems to Have Missed
Stephen Colbert vs. Julian Assange: The Great Debate Video here
Cable: Egyptian April 6 activist's democracy goals "highly unrealistic"
US state cables on Syria
UK firm's partner 'wanted Peru to curb priests in mine conflict areas'
WikiLeaks releases 480 secret cables on Libya
James Mann at Foreign Policy on what they show about U.S. - China relations, how tense they are "in real time," and how one state dinner won't do much really.
What you missed in Wikileaks Informationthread 49: Omar Suleiman And Etc.
Who Is Omar Suleiman?
Viewing cable 09CAIRO1349, GENERAL PETRAEUS' MEETING WITH EGIS CHIEF SOLIMAN
Viewing cable 09CAIRO746, ADMIRAL MULLEN'S MEETING WITH EGIS CHIEF SOLIMAN
Viewing cable 07CAIRO1417, PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION IN EGYPT
WaPo: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: 'Anarchist,' 'agitator,' 'arrogant' and a journalist
The WikiLeaks Revolt
A claim that WikiLeaks cables on Egypt released not this week but in early December, and published by indie paper there, had something to do with current revolt.
In Informationthread 48 we read these:
Cable: Egypt action against poet, bloggers, novelist and journalists
Cable: Egypt's Emergency Law
Cable: Police torture in Egypt
Cable: Police brutality and poor prison conditions in Egypt
Mubarak skeptical of U.S. reform push: leaked cables
Amid Digital Blackout, Anonymous Mass-Faxes WikiLeaks Cables To Egypt
Guardian Liveblog on Egypt
Vodafone confirms role in Egypt’s cellular, Internet blackout
Assange interview with Romanian TV
Kucinich demands visit with accused Wikileaks source
Hey, guys, I am thinking of asking Greg Mitchell for an exclusive Informationthread interview about Wikileaks. I think all of us Informationthread folks should be able to come up with 10 questions that he would not hear from the press. What do you think? I would love to see if we could get 10 amazing questions for him. Tell me what question YOU feel should be asked.