Dennis Rodman

Tom Secker and Robbie Martin join me for a very wide ranging discussion on everything from Reality Winner to Dennis Rodman. Tom and I start off the conversation by talking about the Wikileaks Twitter account tweeting about our issue on The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. We talk about the obvious divide right now between Assange and Wikileaks not just in terms of Twitter, but in terms of their media strategy. The three of us then dive into the bizarre case of NSA leaker Reality Winner. We theorize as to whether she is a true leaker, or a truly disgruntled employee.

(ANTIMEDIA) —A short trip to North Korea that became a 17-month imprisonment is now over for Otto Warmbier, who was recently medically evacuated by the U.S. State Department while in a coma. He was serving a 15-year hard labor sentence for swiping a poster from a Pyongyang hotel.

Remember the American student, Otto Warmbier, 21, who was found guilty of what the North Korean government called “subversion.”
This was Warmbier’s weeping video during a North Korean sentencing…

Moments ago North Korea released Otto Warmbier, who was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made the announcement on Tuesday, that came as former NBA player Dennis Rodman was visiting Pyongyang.
Tillerson’s statement…

Hours after Dennis Rodman, former NBA star and self-professed good friend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un landed in Pyongyang, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed that Otto Warmbier, a US citizen being detained in North Korea will be released and allowed to travel to the United States.
In February of 2016, Warmbier who was visited North Korea as part of a tour group confessed to stealing a political poster and was sentenced to 15 years hard labour.
However, according to Rex Tillerson,

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has for years, acted as something of a good will ambassador between the United States and North Korea (DPRK).
Rodman first went to North Korea in 2013 to participate in a series of exhibition basketball games. Rodman spoke of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un as a “friend for life” after the two first met and encouraged then US President Obama to hold a phone call with Kim citing their mutual love of basketball.

In January 2013 Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited North Korea with an aide and his daughter, as well as frequent DPRK visitor, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. He was of course given VIP treatment by his hosts in Pyongyang, and taken to Kim Il-song University to view students studying on the Internet. It was a private visit and the U.S. State Department did not endorse it any more than it endorsed Dennis Rodman’s trip the following month.