July 25th, 2019 • 2h 46m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Mueller
Tall men's dimentia
This was cruel
Filters are hard to keep running when you get older
Mueller dem strategy 5 of the 10 obstruction charges
Mueller had trouble being able to find the republican speakers on the right
Older politicians still think the old way of media headlines is how it works.
Mueller dem talking point No one is above the law
Andrew Weissmann: Pitbull or Pitfall? '' The Daily Conspiracy
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:47
Andrew Weissmann, a prominent top investigator on special counsel Robert Mueller's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team looking into the ongoing ''Trump-Russia conspiracy'' inquiry, has been accused of personal, partisan, political bias in his often-zealous pursuit of justice.
Andrew Weissmann in 2004 (Photo: Sanchez/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Weissman is no newbie to the Law and Justice. Among the highlights of his career as a prosecutor are the Enron scandal and New York mob boss cases '' he prosecuted more than 25 members of the Genovese, Colombo and Gambino crime families.
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Weissman also directed the controversial raid conducted by the FBI last July 2017 before sunrise at Paul Manafort's Virginia home. Manafort was charged on October 30, 2017, as part of the Russia investigation. He has pled not guilty to 12 counts, including money laundering, failing to register as a foreign agent, and conspiracy against the United States. None other than ''Pitbull'' Weissman is the lead prosecutor for this case.
Paul Manafort
There are several testaments to Weissmann's Democratic, leftist leanings which, together, suggest strongly that he is unfit to serve on any investigation concerning President Donald Trump.
Before joining Mueller's FBI squad, Weissman sent an enthusiastically supportive email to former acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she refused to enforce President Trump's original travel ban issued by executive order on January 27, 2017.
Sally Yates (Photo: AP Photo/Newscom)
Quartz quoted a memo Yates wrote and sent to her staff:
''I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful.''
Yates understood the consequences of violating a direct order from the US Commander-in-Chief, but rather than resign, she issued a Justice Department directive not to present legal arguments in defense of the travel ban, and then waited for the proverbial axe to fall, which it did, in the form of a letter of dismissal later that evening.
Weissman let Yates know that, as a fellow jurist, he agreed that Trump's executive order halting travel to the US by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days, by Syrian refugees indefinitely, and by all refugees for 120 days, was both unlawful and unconstitutional.
Business Insider quoted Weissman's email to Yates:
''I am so proud,'' Weissmann wrote. ''And in awe. Thank you so much.''
Yates' failure to uphold the federal travel ban would have left the government without a legal defense in subsequent court cases.
(Dana Boente, the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia since December 2015, succeeded Yates as Attorney General. In an interesting side note, the CIA and the Pentagon are both located in the Eastern District of Virginia, which often oversees high-profile terrorism cases.)
Questions of loyalty aside, is Weissman a good lawyer? An article from Heavy casts some reasonable doubt on even that claim:
''Time after time, courts have reversed Weissmann's most touted 'victories' for his tactics. This is hardly the stuff of a hero in the law. Weissmann, as deputy and later director of the Enron Task Force, destroyed the venerable accounting firm of Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs worldwide '-- only to be reversed several years later by a unanimous Supreme Court.''
As far back as 2008, Weissman revealed his partisan position when he gave $2,300 to Obama's first presidential campaign. Although government attorneys have the legal right to donate to presidential candidates, Weissman's choice indicates his Democratic party preference. This is fine '' unless or until that preference sways his professional decisions.
A recent report from The Wall Street Journal indicates that Weissman was among the attendees at the Hillary Clinton election night concession party at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City '' if you call that a party. This revelation has provoked outrage among the House Judiciary Committee.
Republican Rep. Steve Chabot called ''the depths of this anti-Trump bias on'' the special counsel's team ''absolutely shocking,'' according to Business Insider.
The Democrats' reply is'...predictable. Again, from Business Insider:
'''I predict that these attacks on the FBI will grow louder and more brazen as the special counsel does his work, and the walls close in around the president, and evidence of his obstruction and other misdeeds becomes more apparent,''' Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, recently promoted to ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said.''
Given these two completely opposing views, history will bear witness as to which side is telling patriotic truths and which is consumed with treasonous lies. We may not have long to wait.
Andrew Weissmann: Robert Mueller's dirty cop
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:43
One of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's lead attorneys has an ethics problem. Actually, a lot of ethics problems, considering what he's gotten away with. According to investigative journalist Sara Carter, Weissmann has been busted for withholding evidence in a previous court case involving prosecution of organized crime, to put an extra thumb on the scale of justice in his own favor. Carter writes that:
In 1997 Andrew Weissmann was officially reprimanded by a judge in the Eastern District of New York for withholding evidence. Weissmann was reported to the Department of Justice Inspector General and Senate Judiciary Committee for alleged ''corrupt legal practices.'' A formal letter from U.S. Attorney Eastern District of New York Zachary Carter requested the judge to remove Weissman's name, according to documents. Civil rights and Criminal Defense Attorney David Schoen said Weissmann needs to be investigated for alleged past misconduct in court cases. More specifically, Weissmann withheld evidence to a court that would have helped the other side in a criminal case, which is required by law. In that previous case: Evidence suggested that Scarpa was involved in a personal relationship with his FBI handler, Lindley DeVecchio. DeVeccio, who was also a witness in a case connected to the Persico case. Weissmann had DeVecchio testify against Michael Sessa, a captain in the Colombo family, despite knowing DeVecchio was under investigation by the FBI for his relationship with Scarpa. Weissmann and his team failed disclose that to the courts and presented him as a solid witness in the case, according to Schoen and court documents.
Mafiosos may not be a sympathetic bunch, but the law is the law and Weissmann didn't think it applied to him.
This, from a man gushingly portrayed in the New York Times last year as "fair."
No, actually, Weissmann doesn't really sound fair. According to the leftwing Daily Beast, in a piece published last August:
[Legal experts] believe [Weissmann's] presence on Mueller's team means the probe may push legal boundaries as it investigates alleged collusion between Trump and Russian interests.
Then there was the Arthur Andersen case, which with Weissmann, shows a pattern of malfeasance. According to the Daily Beast:
During his years at the Justice Department, Weissmann built a reputation as a prosecutor willing to push the envelope '' sometimes with disastrous results. He worked on the Justice Department's Enron probe from 2002 to 2005. And while he was there, he helmed the prosecution of Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, arguing that it had obstructed justice by destroying documents investigators would have needed.
Weissmann and his team took the aggressive step of indicting the entire accounting firm. According to a source familiar with the case, the firm's defense attorneys met with them [and asked Weissmann and his team] not to do so before the indictment, arguing that the firm would be certain to dissolve if it were indicted, leaving thousands of people jobless.
''Their response indicated they didn't care,'' said the person familiar with the case.
Twenty thousand people lost their jobs over a junk case that was thrown out of court and this guy didn't care? Weissmann seems to have a history of dirty-cop tactics in his bid to make headlines, and it's particularly relevant in the current case with Robert Mueller since it now involves withheld evidence, the evidence that the phony Steele dossier, paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and which the FBI knew was fake, was nevertheless the basis for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page, and with it, the entire Trump team, as Team Obama went wild with the unmaskings:
Now we have the weird recusal of Judge Rudolph Contreras in the case against former NSC Advisor Michael Flynn described by Clarice Feldman here. She writes:
The only reason I can imagine why Judge Contreras was recused '' note: did not recuse himself '' is that he was a member of the FISC, the court that grants surveillance warrants under FISA. As the evidence mounts that the warrant [to investigate Trump advisor Carter Page based on the tainted and phony contents of the Hillary Clinton campaign's Steele dossier] was improperly granted, someone '' perhaps the chief judge of the district '' removed him from further participation in the case, likely because Contreras approved the warrant and its extension. If the warrant was improperly issued, all the evidence it garnered is tainted.
As to why the agreed upon delay, my thought is that Mueller wants to wait until the inspector general report so that, in a sense, his hands will be clean if the case is dropped, that he was compelled by the record to do so.
I missed it earlier, but on December 12 of last year, Judge [Emmett] Sullivan issued a tough demand of the prosecution. They are compelled immediately to turn over all exculpatory material in their possession to General Flynn. The last paragraph of the order is particularly strong:
And here Weissmann has this history of not turning over exculpatory evidence to the extent that he has been blasted by other judges, even though the law tells him to do so. There's also Weissmann's willing to take down whole companies to get a collar as well. And according to the Daily Beast, there is Weissmann's crony closeness to Obama's lieutenants such as Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch from his Brooklyn prosecutor days. Does this sound like someone who's fit for his job as dispassionate prosecutor in the nominally non-partisan Special Counsel's office?
It sounds as though Judge Sullivan is onto him and his dirty-cop prosecutorial games. Byron York has more on Sullivan here. If the case against Flynn is thrown out, it will be because of Robert Mueller's rather glaring dirty-cop problem, likely in Andrew Weissmann.
One of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's lead attorneys has an ethics problem. Actually, a lot of ethics problems, considering what he's gotten away with. According to investigative journalist Sara Carter, Weissmann has been busted for withholding evidence in a previous court case involving prosecution of organized crime, to put an extra thumb on the scale of justice in his own favor. Carter writes that:
In 1997 Andrew Weissmann was officially reprimanded by a judge in the Eastern District of New York for withholding evidence. Weissmann was reported to the Department of Justice Inspector General and Senate Judiciary Committee for alleged ''corrupt legal practices.'' A formal letter from U.S. Attorney Eastern District of New York Zachary Carter requested the judge to remove Weissman's name, according to documents. Civil rights and Criminal Defense Attorney David Schoen said Weissmann needs to be investigated for alleged past misconduct in court cases. More specifically, Weissmann withheld evidence to a court that would have helped the other side in a criminal case, which is required by law. In that previous case: Evidence suggested that Scarpa was involved in a personal relationship with his FBI handler, Lindley DeVecchio. DeVeccio, who was also a witness in a case connected to the Persico case. Weissmann had DeVecchio testify against Michael Sessa, a captain in the Colombo family, despite knowing DeVecchio was under investigation by the FBI for his relationship with Scarpa. Weissmann and his team failed disclose that to the courts and presented him as a solid witness in the case, according to Schoen and court documents.
Mafiosos may not be a sympathetic bunch, but the law is the law and Weissmann didn't think it applied to him.
This, from a man gushingly portrayed in the New York Times last year as "fair."
No, actually, Weissmann doesn't really sound fair. According to the leftwing Daily Beast, in a piece published last August:
[Legal experts] believe [Weissmann's] presence on Mueller's team means the probe may push legal boundaries as it investigates alleged collusion between Trump and Russian interests.
Then there was the Arthur Andersen case, which with Weissmann, shows a pattern of malfeasance. According to the Daily Beast:
During his years at the Justice Department, Weissmann built a reputation as a prosecutor willing to push the envelope '' sometimes with disastrous results. He worked on the Justice Department's Enron probe from 2002 to 2005. And while he was there, he helmed the prosecution of Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, arguing that it had obstructed justice by destroying documents investigators would have needed.
Weissmann and his team took the aggressive step of indicting the entire accounting firm. According to a source familiar with the case, the firm's defense attorneys met with them [and asked Weissmann and his team] not to do so before the indictment, arguing that the firm would be certain to dissolve if it were indicted, leaving thousands of people jobless.
''Their response indicated they didn't care,'' said the person familiar with the case.
Twenty thousand people lost their jobs over a junk case that was thrown out of court and this guy didn't care? Weissmann seems to have a history of dirty-cop tactics in his bid to make headlines, and it's particularly relevant in the current case with Robert Mueller since it now involves withheld evidence, the evidence that the phony Steele dossier, paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and which the FBI knew was fake, was nevertheless the basis for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page, and with it, the entire Trump team, as Team Obama went wild with the unmaskings:
Now we have the weird recusal of Judge Rudolph Contreras in the case against former NSC Advisor Michael Flynn described by Clarice Feldman here. She writes:
The only reason I can imagine why Judge Contreras was recused '' note: did not recuse himself '' is that he was a member of the FISC, the court that grants surveillance warrants under FISA. As the evidence mounts that the warrant [to investigate Trump advisor Carter Page based on the tainted and phony contents of the Hillary Clinton campaign's Steele dossier] was improperly granted, someone '' perhaps the chief judge of the district '' removed him from further participation in the case, likely because Contreras approved the warrant and its extension. If the warrant was improperly issued, all the evidence it garnered is tainted.
As to why the agreed upon delay, my thought is that Mueller wants to wait until the inspector general report so that, in a sense, his hands will be clean if the case is dropped, that he was compelled by the record to do so.
I missed it earlier, but on December 12 of last year, Judge [Emmett] Sullivan issued a tough demand of the prosecution. They are compelled immediately to turn over all exculpatory material in their possession to General Flynn. The last paragraph of the order is particularly strong:
And here Weissmann has this history of not turning over exculpatory evidence to the extent that he has been blasted by other judges, even though the law tells him to do so. There's also Weissmann's willing to take down whole companies to get a collar as well. And according to the Daily Beast, there is Weissmann's crony closeness to Obama's lieutenants such as Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch from his Brooklyn prosecutor days. Does this sound like someone who's fit for his job as dispassionate prosecutor in the nominally non-partisan Special Counsel's office?
It sounds as though Judge Sullivan is onto him and his dirty-cop prosecutorial games. Byron York has more on Sullivan here. If the case against Flynn is thrown out, it will be because of Robert Mueller's rather glaring dirty-cop problem, likely in Andrew Weissmann.
Andrew Weissmann - Wikipedia
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:34
Andrew Weissmann (born c. 1958) is an American attorney. Since 2015 he has been the chief of the criminal fraud section of the U.S. Department of Justice. In June 2017 he was appointed to a management role on the 2017 special counsel team headed by Robert Mueller. To assume that position, Weissmann took a leave from his DOJ post.[1]
Education [ edit ] Weissmann has a bachelor's degree from Princeton University (1980). Following a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Geneva, he attended and graduated from Columbia Law School (1984). He then clerked for Judge Eugene Nickerson in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.[2]
Career [ edit ] From 1991 to 2002, Weissmann worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. While there he tried more than 25 cases involving members of the Genovese, Colombo and Gambino crime families.[1] He led the prosecution team in the Vincent Gigante case, in which Gigante was convicted.[3]
From 2002 to 2005, Weissmann was deputy director and then director of the task force investigating the Enron scandal.[1] His work resulted in the prosecution of more than 30 people for crimes including perjury, fraud, and obstruction including three of Enron's top executives, Andrew Fastow, Kenneth Lay. and Jeffrey Skilling. In a follow-up case in U.S. District Court, Weissmann also was successful at arguing that auditing firm Arthur Andersen LLP had covered up for Enron. In that case, which resulted in the destruction of Andersen, he convinced the district judge to instruct the jury that they could convict the firm regardless of whether its employees knew they were violating the law.[3] That ruling was later unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States, in which the court held that "the jury instructions failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing."[3]
In 2005 Weissmann worked as special counsel under Mueller at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, then went into private practice at Jenner & Block in New York. In 2011 he returned to the FBI, serving as General Counsel under Mueller.[4] Since 2015 he has headed the criminal fraud section at DOJ. Weissmann has taught at NYU School of Law, Fordham Law School, and Brooklyn Law School.[2]
On June 19, 2017, Weissmann joined Special Counsel Mueller's team in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[5][6] He was said to be "the architect of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort." A news report in March 2019 said he would soon leave the Justice Department and become a faculty member at New York University and to work on public service projects.[7]
References [ edit ] ^ a b c Darren Samuelsohn. Everything we know about the Mueller probe so far. Politico, June 6, 2017. ^ a b "Press release: Andrew Weissmann Selected as Chief of Criminal Division's Fraud Section". U.S. Department of Justice. January 9, 2015 . Retrieved June 12, 2017 . ^ a b c Willman, David (February 19, 2018). "Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann has a reputation for hard-charging tactics '-- and sometimes going too far". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved February 20, 2018 . ^ Tom Schoenberg. Trump-Russia: senior US justice official Andrew Weissmann joining investigation. Sydney Morning Herald, June 1, 2017. ^ Karen Freifeld. Mueller team lawyer brings witness-flipping expertise to Trump probes Reuters. June 19, 2017 ^ Flegenheimer, Matt (October 31, 2017). "Andrew Weissmann, Mueller's Legal Pit Bull". The New York Times . Retrieved December 11, 2017 . ^ Carrie Johnson. Top Mueller Prosecutor Stepping Down. Morning Edition, NPR, March 14, 2019. External links [ edit ] Appearances on C-SPAN
Seeking Justice '' Addressing Prosecutorial Misconduct in the United States Legal System >> Blog Archive >> DOJ Defends FBI Deputy Director Andrew Weissmann Against Serious Ethics Charges Pending in NY
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:34
Serious ethical charges against FBI Deputy Director Andrew Weissmann are pending before the First Judicial Department Disciplinary Committee in New York. The charges arise from his role in hiding evidence favorable to the defense when he was a federal prosecutor leading the Enron Task Force. The Department of Justice is handling his defense.
According to the DOJ, there was no violation of the rules of ethics, even if Weissmann ''plainly suppressed'' evidence favorable to the defense'--as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Enron Task Force did. Mr. Weissmann, who also serves as General Counsel to the FBI, has pitched his entire ethics defense on the claim that the Rules of Professional Conduct require prosecutors to disclose to the defense team only information that is both favorable and ''material.'' That may be the standard for reversing a criminal conviction under the Supreme Court's 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland, but the ethical rules require more.
Any notion that the Rules of Professional Conduct merely codify or mirror Brady, and do not press beyond it, would be a major NEWS FLASH to anyone even moderately familiar with legal ethics. The text of the rule (usually a paragraph of Rule 3.8, Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor), explicitly requires prosecutors ''to make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused.'' What part of ''all'' is confusing to the Department of Justice?
It was no accident that the Brady requirement of materiality was omitted from ABA Model Rule 3.8, which has been adopted essentially verbatim in every state. ABA Formal Opinion 09-454, issued in July 2009 explained in detail that while constitutional doctrine under Brady and its progeny focuses on the fairness of the underlying criminal proceeding, Rule 3.8 focuses only on the knowing misconduct of the prosecutor, whose mission is not merely to seek convictions, but to see that justice is done. Over and over again, the Opinion insisted that it simply incorrect to think of Rule 3.8 as nothing more than the Brady rule made enforceable against prosecutors in disciplinary proceedings.
This obvious understanding of the key difference between Brady and Rule 3.8''that only the former includes a ''materiality'' prong''has been assumed by the Supreme Court in several opinions following on Brady, and has been adopted everywhere in the United States except Ohio and Colorado. Certainly it is the understanding in New York, where Weissmann is licensed and is facing disciplinary charges, and in Texas where the Enron cases were tried.
Andrew Weissmann and his subordinate at the time, current Chief White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, did not make the required disclosures, and there is no doubt that the information they withheld was known to them. The Enron Task Force prosecuting Merrill Lynch executives in the ''Nigerian Barges'' case had actually yellow-highlighted statements of key witnesses they knew were favorable to the defense, and then hid the yellow-highlighted evidence from the defendants. New prosecutors disclosed it accidentally six years later. That was long after four executives who had committed no crime spent a year in prison while Weissmann and his team continued to conceal the evidence.
Weissmann resigned from the ETF amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct during the Broadband part of the Enron saga. He was also the driving force behind the destruction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm''obliterating 85,000 jobs''only to have a unanimous Supreme Court reverse the decision because Weissmann had proposed jury instructions, adopted by Judge Melinda Harmon, that had written criminal intent out of the law.
After a partnership at the mega-firm Jenner & Block, Andrew Weissman was elevated to his current positions at the FBI by President Obama''an unusual and troubling choice in light of Weissmann's history of disregard of the special responsibilities of the federal prosecutor.
During his years on the Enron Task Force, Prosecutor Weissmann was widely known for intimidating witnesses, hiding evidence, and unethical and heavy-handed, if not illegal, tactics. As long as he held the power to indict, however, few dared speak out. He repeatedly threatened to indict people who contradicted his view of the Enron cases.
Will the authorities in New York take action to address the serious violations of the rules of ethics by former federal prosecutor and current high-ranking official in the FBI Andrew Weissmann? Will they even seriously investigate these charges?
Will other attorneys now speak out about Weissman's misconduct in years past? Or has he risen so high that he is truly above the law?
New York lawyers must step up to the plate to ensure that New York does the right thing. But because Andrew Weissmann now holds a high position in the nation's justice system, lawyers from around the country are on deck as well.
By Bill Hodes
Who Wrote the Mueller Report? | Human Events
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:04
We all owe the Democrat Party of America another thank you.
Hot off the backs of making 'the Squad' their public faces for the 2020 campaign, Democrats handed President Trump and conservatives another victory today in the form of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's testimony before Congressional committees.
Democrats who expected a fiery Bob Mueller to recommend impeachment of the 45th President of the United States were already setting themselves up for a fall.
Mueller, as many observers noted, seemed unfamiliar with much of his own report, steadily falling into a pattern of refusing to answer questions, or simply endorsing the findings of the report which has already been public for three months.
After the report's release, Mueller alongside Attorney General Bill Barr put out a rare joint statement which affirmed the fact that the Special Counsel was not in a position to offer a determination over whether or not President Trump had committed any crimes per the scope of the Russia investigation.
In other words, Democrats who expected a fiery Bob Mueller to recommend impeachment of the 45th President of the United States were already setting themselves up for a fall.
Democrats '-- alongside Democrat-funded neoconservative activist Bill Kristol '-- have spent weeks building up Mueller's reputation in the public sphere. Left-leaning congressmen and women heaped praise upon the former FBI director in advance of, and during his testimony.
Robert Mueller Testifies (C-SPAN)
But Mueller himself chipped away at that throughout the process today.
He looked tired, he sounded confused, and more than anything else, he seemed totally unprepared. Some have begun to speculate as to whether or not he read his own report before attending the hearing.
[Mueller] looked tired, he sounded confused, and more than anything else, he seemed totally unprepared.
But it was Mueller's response in reaction to questions about the Fusion GPS-Christopher Steele dossier originally published by Buzzfeed that shone the greatest light on Mueller's motivations.
While accepting he was unimpeded over the course of his $25m, two-year investigation, he refused to comment on the origin of the whole thing: the Steele dossier.
He even said he wasn't familiar with the opposition research firm (Fusion GPS) retained by anti-Trump Republicans and the Democrat Party/Clinton Campaign.
More to the point, Mueller refused to answer as to why neither Steele nor Mifsud, with their links to Western and Russian intelligence, were pursued further or even charged if they lied.
Fusion GPS Russia-Trump Dossier
One of the most revealing exchanges was between Mueller and Florida congressman Matt Gaetz:
''Director Mueller, can you state with confidence that the Steele dossier was not part of Russia's disinformation campaign?'' asked Gaetz.
''Uh, uh, I said, uh uh, in my opening statement, uh, that, uh, part of the, uh, building of the case was predated me by at least ten months,'' Mueller replied, leading Gaetz to blast back: ''Yeah, and Paul Manafort's alleged crimes regarding tax evasion predated you, and you had no problem charging him''.
''That's beyond my purview.''
Gaetz went on: ''[Christopher] Steele reported to the FBI that senior Russian foreign ministry figures, along with other Russians, told him that there was, and I'm quoting from the Steele dossier, 'extensive evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign team and the Kremlin'... So here's my question, did Russians really tell that to Christopher Steele or did he just make it all up and was he just lying to the FBI?''
''That's beyond my purview,'' Mueller responded.
''No, it is exactly your purview, Director Mueller, and here's why,'' Gaetz went on, ''only one of two things is possible, right. Either, Steele made this whole thing up, and there were never any Russians telling him of this vast criminal conspiracy that you didn't find, or Russians lied to Steele.''
''Now, if Russians were lying to Steele to undermine our confidence in our duly elected President, that would seem to be precisely your purview because you stated in your opening that the organizing principle was to fully and thoroughly investigate Russia's interference, but you weren't interested in whether or not Russians were interfering through Christopher Steele''.
Mueller's responses throughout his day-long testimony were similarly vague, confused, and standoffish.
He even forgot which president nominated him U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Not a life changing moment one easily forgets.
Either Mueller was cracking under pressure or stress, or he has not been fit for purpose throughout his oversight of the Russia investigation.
Given Mueller's inability to answer so many questions, and his lack of familiarity with the report itself, the question must now be asked: Who DID write the Mueller report?
And given Mueller's inability to answer so many questions, and his lack of familiarity with the report itself, the question must now be asked: Who DID write the Mueller report?
The ex special counsel refused to be drawn on who was fired from his team of lawyers '-- of whom many happened to donate over $60,000 in total to Hillary Clinton and Democrat candidates. He refused to elaborate on the actions and firings of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page '-- the FBI lovers who pledged to bring down Donald Trump. He didn't even want to get into how his team was picked.
All of these details are pertinent to the $25m investigation, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, which has driven a wedge through the nation for two years and the contents of which have hampered the U.S. government for three.
So thanks for showing Mueller up, dear Dems.
But the question must be answered: who wrote the Mueller report, and why have the shadowy, intelligence figures lurking in the background of this entire saga been left unchallenged?
Raheem Kassam is the Editor in Chief of Human Events
Senile, dementia, geriatric: Twitter mocks Mueller
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:01
| July 24, 2019 01:30 PM
Many social media users mocked former special counsel Robert Mueller for his testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.
Mueller testified in front of the committee about his two-year long investigation concluding that the president's campaign did not conspire with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. The second half of his 448-page report details multiple instances in which Trump may have committed obstruction of justice, but he did not come to a decision on those cases due to a Department of Justice guideline against indicting a sitting president.
The ex-special counsel's testimony, however, was mired by him stumbling, appearing unfamiliar with the report, and with him asking for members of the committee to repeat himself.
A number of social media users mocked him for those instances as did the Drudge Report, which wrote, "DAZED AND CONFUSED" at the top of their site with a link to a montage of Mueller's stumbling. Others also jumped in to poke fun at Mueller.
Mueller is coming off as a semi-senile old goat who doesn't have a clue what he's doing or talking about.Great job, Democrats. #MuellerHearing
'-- David Wohl (@DavidWohl) July 24, 2019 either Mueller is senile or he is lying. Over and over again he could not remember even the most basic facts of his report. And yet if there was a question which attacked the president with regards to the report he had perfect recollection.
'-- Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) July 24, 2019 Merely an observation: Mueller looks like a tired old man who is confused, unable to stay up with questioning and potentially suffering early onset of dementia. Like he's there but clearly struggling in a real way.
'-- Ned Ryun (@nedryun) July 24, 2019 That loud flushing sound is the last of Robert Mueller"s reputation going down the toilet. He looks lost, feeble, over-medicated, and in the early stages of dementia.#MuellerHearings #MuellerHearing
'-- ð--¥ Wayne Dupree ð--¥ (@WayneDupreeShow) July 24, 2019 Mueller appears rambling, somewhat senile, not alert. Not the impressive figure I thought he would be. Superman loses his cape. Raises question: Was Weissman running things all along?
'-- Dick Morris (@DickMorrisTweet) July 24, 2019
The Algo's
Insurance insider
Adam -
Your discussion on insurance
whistle blowers hits close to home. My wife is a Bernadette working for a
large regional hospital/insurance provider in the area for 25 years. She
is THE Database Administrator for analysis/analytics on the INSURANCE side of
this "non-profit" organization. She oversee's hundreds of
millions of dollars in claims going through this place.
About 10 months ago my wife
started noticing third party interaction at a high-level on the INSURANCE
side. Even additional data fields such as SPEEDING Tickets, Loans and
CREDIT SCORES on insurance holders. The data collection outside medical
procedures was staggering and she started questioning whether it's legal.
At this point, she's not sure what to do as there does not seem to be a
"whistle blower" program per se.
More to come as she digs for more
information.
Frm NY Banker
MMT trump tax cut and gold standard are proof
Banker Goldman Sachs may be next
Monthly Review | Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 15:58
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Please visit the MR store for subscription options. Thank you very much.
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Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997), The Value of Money (2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism (2011).
Harry Magdoff's The Age of Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently discussed in Marxist literature'--namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials.1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end. Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and Economic CrisisThere are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end. The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel Berrick Saul, there are no ''markets on tap'' for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the post-Second World War period of dirigisme.2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital, following the lead of MichaÅ Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the surplus.3 Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization. In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the former, did not actually do so, except to sectors like mines and plantations, which only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of labor.4 This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher'--indeed, it was marginally lower'--than it had been in 1968.5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected, to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly, then this fact undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital, especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national'--that is, nation-based'--and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse, causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007''09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity.6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be ''as good as gold'' should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt (since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting.7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment'--while compensating capitalists adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows'--shows that these rules are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead EndThere are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect. Adjusting for this lower participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable'--around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4 percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting stagnation of investment.8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.9 While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture, defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism, here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979''81 divided by mid''triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016'--and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding, especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism (since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time. Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, ''a partnership of big business and fascist upstarts.''10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that ''behind every fascism there is a failed revolution'' points in this direction.
Fascism Then and NowContemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s, however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive. The decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by ''fiscal rectitude,'' cannot possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The 1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called ''interimperialist rivalry.'' The military expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for ''repartitioning an already partitioned world.'' Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an ''ultraimperialism'' as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry, but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and the financial oligarchy were essentially national'--that is, German, French, or British. And while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers; on the contrary, it wants the entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge (of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a lingering fascism of less murderous intensity, which, when in power, does not necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally. But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence permanently maintaining the ''partnership between big business and fascist upstarts.''
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism, can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in itself a major antifascist act. Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist InterventionsEven though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of ''neoliberalism at a dead end,'' with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits, financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital. Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War.11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it.
Notes'(C) Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).'(C) Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870''1914 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).'(C) Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966).'(C) One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).'(C) Joseph E. Stiglitz, ''Inequality is Holding Back the Recovery,'' New York Times, January 19, 2013.'(C) For a discussion of how even the recent euphoria about U.S. growth is vanishing, see C. P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, ''Vanishing Green Shoots and the Possibility of Another Crisis,'' The Hindu Business Line, April 8, 2019.'(C) For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, ''Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism,'' in Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.'(C) Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, ''Capacity Utilization: Manufacturing,'' February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org.'(C) This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression, 1929''1939, 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2013).'(C) MichaÅ Kalecki, ''Political Aspects of Full Employment,'' Political Quarterly (1943), available at mronline.org.'(C) Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, ''John Maynard Keynes (1883''1946),'' in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952). 2019, Volume 71, Issue 3 (July-August 2019) ConnectSubscribe to the Monthly Review e-newsletter (max of 1-3 per month).
Conservatives erupt in outrage against budget deal | TheHill
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:42
Conservatives are outraged about the $320 billion budget deal President Trump Donald John Trump5 things to know about Boris Johnson Conservatives erupt in outrage against budget deal Trump says Omar will help him win Minnesota MORE announced Monday, and they are not holding back.
Rep. Mark Walker Bradley (Mark) Mark WalkerDemocrats should rise above and unify against Trump's tweets The Hill's Morning Report: Trump walks back from 'send her back' chants GOP rattled by Trump rally MORE (R-N.C.), a member of the House leadership, tweeted out a gif of the Joker burning a giant pile of cash when the announcement came out.
''Our credit card is maxed out,'' he wrote in a follow-up Tweet. ''What this budget deal does is ask the credit card company for another $320 billion in credit NOW for the chance to get paid back $75 billion in a decade. No bank would take that. American taxpayers shouldn't either,'' he added.
Budget deal. pic.twitter.com/PHa754iGRJ
'-- Rep. Mark Walker (@RepMarkWalker) July 22, 2019Rep. Chip Roy Charles (Chip) Eugene RoyWendy Davis launches bid for Congress in Texas The Hill's Campaign Report: Second debate lineups set up high-profile clash Democratic staffer says Wendy Davis will run for Congress MORE (R-Texas), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, on Monday, penned a letter to Trump opposing the agreement and has since said he is ''on board'' with energizing conservatives to defeat the bill.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog that advocates for lowering deficits, estimated that the deal would cost $1.7 trillion over a decade, and add another 5 percentage points to the debt by the end of the decade.
Since Trump took office, the debt has grown from just under $20 trillion to over $22 trillion. While mandatory spending remains the largest driver of deficits, the 2017 GOP tax law was projected to add $1.9 trillion to the deficit over a decade, and bipartisan deals to increase defense and domestic spending have added billions more.
"President Trump will have set the record for the largest increases in federal spending in the history of our country, surpassing George W. Bush's Republican record," said one member of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
But the Caucus is unlikely to take definitive action against the deal, and its leaders, Reps. Mark Meadows Mark Randall MeadowsLawmakers request documents on DC councilman ethics investigation House Republicans dismissive of Paul Ryan's take on Trump The 27 Republicans who voted with Democrats to block Trump from taking military action against Iran MORE (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan James (Jim) Daniel JordanWill Democrats be up to the task of publicly interviewing Mueller? 10 questions for Robert Mueller DOJ, Commerce slam House Dems contempt vote as 'political stunt' MORE (R-Ohio), both key Trump allies, have remained uncharacteristically quiet since the deal's announcement, focusing their recent fire on an upcoming hearing with special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) Swan MuellerThis week: Mueller dominates chaotic week on Capitol Hill Top Republican considered Mueller subpoena to box in Democrats Kamala Harris says her Justice Dept would have 'no choice' but to prosecute Trump for obstruction MORE .
Other conservatives have also been wary of criticizing Trump, who enthusiastically supported the deal in a Tweet.
''President Trump has worked hard in his budget to restrain Congress's unending desire to spend, but we can't support this spending deal,'' said David McIntosh, President of the Club for Growth.
McIntosh cast blame for the deal on Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who was the lead negotiator with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiConservatives erupt in outrage against budget deal Grassley, Wyden reach deal to lower drug prices Why do Republicans keep trying to outspend Democrats in Congress? MORE (D-Calif.) after Trump's acting chief of staff, Freedom Caucus founder Mick Mulvaney John (Mick) Michael MulvaneyPelosi, Mnuchin reach 'near-final agreement' on budget, debt ceiling This week: Mueller dominates chaotic week on Capitol Hill Trump telling aides to look at potential spending cuts if he wins reelection: report MORE , was sidelined.
''We also hope President Trump gives Secretary Mnuchin a copy of The Art of the Deal so that he will not be as weak and give in to liberal demands in future negotiations,'' McIntosh said.
Other outside groups and influencers were less reticent about criticizing Trump.
Adam Brandon, the president of FreedomWorks, a conservative group, called the deal a ''disgrace.''
The Drudge Report, a conservative internet portal, led its site with the banner ''More spending, More Debt; $320 Billion blowout.''
The conservative Heritage Foundation, which has played a key role in crafting some Trump White House policies, didn't hold back either.
''This deal comes less than four years after President Trump campaigned to balance the budget by cutting spending and after his administration produced three budgets to move toward fiscal sustainability,'' said Heritage scholar Paul Winfree.
''If President Trump takes this deal '-- the worst in a decade '-- his fiscal legacy will be no different than the Obama and Bush administrations that he has criticized,'' he added.
Scott Wong contributed.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pays a visit to Washington - Axios
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:53
As the Fed approaches a likely rate cut at the end of the month '-- in the face of 50-year low unemployment, rising wages and strong consumer spending '-- it could not have been a better time for a visit to Washington from Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda.
What it means: Kuroda has instituted some of the world's most extreme and unorthodox monetary policies, including directing the central bank to buy Japanese stocks. More analysts are starting to believe such policies will be adopted in other places, including the U.S.
"Most economies have been experiencing low inflation and low growth since the global financial crisis," Kuroda said in a speech Monday at IMF headquarters in Washington. "Japan's experience in the long battle against deflation could provide a case study for other central banks in conducting monetary policy going forward."Catch up quick:
BOJ owns around 50% of Japan's government bonds '-- the world's largest single holder, by far (for comparison, the Fed holds about 10% of U.S. government bonds).BOJ has even bought Japanese corporate bonds and owns around 80% of the country's ETFs.BOJ's yield curve control program seeks to hold 10-year yields near 0%, effectively directing what is supposed to be a free market.It was the first central bank in the world to introduce negative interest rates.The central bank holds over $5 trillion of assets on its balance sheet, which is more than Japan's GDP, and the country's outstanding public debt is more than 5 times the size of its economy."We live in a time where the book on monetary policy continues to be rewritten ... just about every day," IMF acting managing director David Lipton said. "Of course, all serious monetary policy students will have read the book on Japan."
What's next: ''If the ECB is really going to try to restimulate the economy in Europe, they are going to have to buy equities,'' BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said on CNBC Friday.
"As soon as an unexpected event takes the market down hard and fast, we believe this will trigger the next wave of buying from central banks, but this time directed at stocks," Yves Lamoureux, president and founder of behavioral research firm Lamoureux & Co., tells Axios.That will certainly include the Fed, Lamoureux says.The last word: Asked whether it would be a good idea for other central banks to follow his lead, Kuroda said that in light of the current economic environment, "that might be the case."
Go deeper: The global economy's road to "Japanization"
2020
COVER STORY : The Power, the Glory, the Glitz : Marianne Williamson, an ex-nightclub singer, has attracted many in Hollywood with her blend of new-time religion and self-help--and alienated more than a few - Los Angeles Times
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:51
Wearing feathers in her hair, spike heels and a strapless evening gown, Marianne Williamson, New Age guru of the hour, is seated on a hotel ballroom stage in Marina del Rey, shoulder to shoulder with unmarried soap opera actors and other eligible and glamorous singles. Amid much banter and giggling, they will be ''auctioned off'' by talk-show host Cyndy Garvey and producer-director Garry Marshall.
Laura Dern and Linda Blair are no-shows, but Williamson, on the verge of becoming almost as famous as they are, will wait patiently for two hours until it is her turn to go on the block. She will answer politely when Garvey asks her how to pronounce Muse, the name of the restaurant where she plans to take her date. She will urge Marshall to tell the well-toned crowd that she is ''very interesting.'' In exchange for an evening in her company, a man from the Midwest will contribute $1,200 to the Family Assistance Program, a charity for the homeless.
Although on other nights she exhorts her followers to give themselves up to God, there is nothing incongruous in her now offering herself up at a bachelor-bachelorette auction. This, after all, is Hollywood, and Williamson, who has been mentioned in the same breath as Mother Teresa for her work on behalf of people with AIDS, is no stranger to the combined worlds of glitz and good causes.
In a field crowded with purveyors of spiritual wisdom, the 39-year-old tough-talking, quick-witted former nightclub singer from Texas has blazed her way to the top. She has been captivating standing-room-only audiences in West Hollywood, Santa Monica and New York with her blend of religion and self-help drawn from a three-volume work known as ''A Course in Miracles.''
Williamson is also the latest mystical sensation in Hollywood, where many work assiduously to cultivate their souls, often with the same devotion they apply to their physiques. Anthony Perkins, Lesley Ann Warren, Tommy Tune, Cher and Roy Scheider go to her lectures. David Geffen and Sandy Gallin listen to her on tape and have sought her private counsel; she lunches with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Dawn Steel, and last summer she officiated at the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky. ''Her sense of spirituality triggered off my own,'' the bride said recently through a spokeswoman.
Many of the entertainment industry's biggest names have helped raise money for Project Angel Food, a service launched by Williamson in 1989 that now delivers more than 300 hot meals a day to housebound AIDS patients in Los Angeles.
Since the turn of the century, when Katherine Tingley established her exotic Point Loma Theosophical Community near San Diego and became known as the Purple Mother, Southern California has been a magnet for prophets promising to unlock the secrets of the metaphysical and the occult. From Krishnamurti to Aimee Semple McPherson to the so-called I AM cult, they found easy acceptance in a land populated by migrants eager to rid themselves of their ties to the past and exorcise ''the nameless fears which so many of them had acquired from the fire-and-brimstone theology of the Middle West,'' as journalist Carey McWilliams wrote in 1946.
While Williamson's gift for showmanship sometimes calls to mind Sister Aimee, there is no evidence the theatrical and controversial faith healer had a Hollywood following. It was left to other guides to the spiritual and supernatural to attract such figures as Greta Garbo, Mae West and Aldous Huxley.
Many more celebrities have since heeded the call. These days, Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson say their mantras with the spiritual heir to the Swami Muktananda, Swami Gurumayi Chidvilasananda; Sharon Gless and Michael York are devoted to Lazaris, a ''non-physical entity'' whose message is ''channeled'' through a wealthy former business executive in Florida named Jach Pursel; while Streisand and Richard Chamberlain have participated in ''transformational'' workshops in Arizona led by a former practicing physician, W. Brugh Joy.
But no spiritual master is more talked-about than Williamson.
Slim and stylish, with dark shiny hair, flawless skin and angular features, Williamson now hopes to add ''best-selling author'' to her list of accomplishments. Her just-published, ''A Return to Love,'' recently got a big boost when Oprah Winfrey snapped up 1,000 copies and told her television audience she had experienced 157 miracles after reading it. Norman Lear was scheduled to host a party last week in Williamson's honor.
But just as nationwide fame is within reach, there are signs that Williamson, who preaches a message of love and forgiveness, has become carried away with her own success and has alienated some of the very show business figures who were catapulting her to stardom. Last year, director Mike Nichols and other prominent New Yorkers defected from her Manhattan charity and set up a rival organization. She has had major blow-ups with producer Howard Rosenman and photographer-producer Michael Childers, among those most responsible for pulling in big names like Bette Midler, David Hockney, Meryl Streep and Anjelica Huston to her star-studded fund-raising events.
And last month, the staff of her Los Angeles AIDS charity revolted after she fired the most recent in a series of executive directors.
Feared in some quarters for her explosive temper, Williamson acknowledges that she often comes across as ''the bitch for God.''
Nevertheless, she remains revered by legions of followers, many of whom regularly flock to the Harmony Gold auditorium on Sunset Boulevard or the Unitarian Community Church in Santa Monica, paying $7 each to have her lead them in prayer and meditation and to soak up the ''spiritual psychotherapy'' she dispenses on such topics as relationships and careers.
Speaking without notes and in her Texas accent, Williamson laces her talks with allusions to movies--"Grand Canyon'' is a current favorite--a sprinkling of philosophy, and references to her own troubled and directionless past. Her fast-paced delivery is so fluent and her hold over the audience so complete that many describe her as charismatic and spellbinding.
''She's one of the most brilliant extemporaneous speakers,'' said Gary Dontzig, supervising producer for ''Murphy Brown,'' and the owner of about 25 of Williamson's taped lectures. ''She gets up there, takes a topic, just runs with it and makes complete sense.''
''Every time I'm here I feel better,'' said Randy Mogg, a 40-year-old sculptor, after listening to a Williamson lecture. ''Her message is very positive.''
Williamson is such a powerful communicator, said movie producer Lynda Obst, Williamson's roommate at Pomona College, that ''I tell her she could be working off the telephone book.''
Instead, this self-described ''Jewish unwed mother'' has become the foremost interpreter of ''A Course in Miracles,'' the 1,200-page tome she first noticed on a friend's coffee table about 15 years ago, not long after it was published. ''Students'' of the course, which has sold 750,000 copies, are told that it was dictated by Jesus Christ himself over a seven-year period to an emotionally tortured psychologist named Helen Schucman.
The course offers a variation on so-called New Thought, the American metaphysical movement that dates back to the 1880s, said J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara. Resting on the belief ''that the only reality is God, and that negative things like poverty, sickness and fear are unreal,'' as Melton put it, the course advocates ''surrendering'' to God's plan and approaching life in a loving, non-judgmental way. The change in perception is said to produce miracles.
To the skeptical, much of what Williamson has to say sounds like platitudes gleaned from women's magazines and daytime television--Dr. Joyce Brothers with a spiritual overlay. But it is an appealing message for an industry racked by the AIDS epidemic and, not surprisingly, a large proportion of Williamson's West Coast audience is gay. Many feel excluded from more established religions, with their emphasis on sin and their intolerance for homosexuality.
Though not a follower, Obst believes Williamson came along at just the right moment. ''There was a wonderful confluence of what Marianne had to say and what this community needed to hear,'' the producer said.
Some of Williamson's listeners also attend her weekly support group for people with the HIV virus, where she counsels them that ''your soul is not sick.''
The lectures are also available on cassettes, offered under such titles as ''Fear of Abandonment'' and ''Fear of Intimacy.'' ''So many people have been affected by those tapes,'' said Steve Sager, an agent and real estate developer who helped Williamson set up the tape business and acquire her Hollywood connections. ''It's the thing in the morning that gets them going.''
After her lectures, Williamson fields questions from the audience, working the auditorium or church like Phil Donahue, advising them on their troubled love affairs and job-related anxieties and often bringing down the house with her self-revealing rejoinders.
One woman tells her she once made a list of all the qualities she desired in a mate and eventually married just such a person.
Williamson herself once made a list like that, she confides to her audience. ''The only trouble was, I forgot to say, ''Please God, he should not be a heroin addict.''
To Williamson, every problem can be solved by consulting the course. "(It) is a complete system,'' she said. ''It has no holes in it.''
She advises one woman who wants to shed pounds to refrain from dieting and pray to God instead to eliminate her craving for food. The woman has a role in a play that opens in 30 days. ''You'll be gorgeous,'' Williamson promises.
Williamson believes her wide-ranging experience as a child of the '60s comes in handy now. ''Anything anybody's done I've probably done it,'' she said.
The ''spoiled child'' of a Houston immigration lawyer, she dropped out of college in her junior year and roamed around the country, leading a dissolute life as a singer, cocktail waitress, office temp and bookseller and getting involved in a series of unhappy relationships. She was married once, she says, ''for a minute and a half.''
In her early 20s she spent a year working as an assistant to Albert Goldman, the biographer of Lenny Bruce and John Lennon. ''She was very, very profoundly confused and had no conception of what to do with herself,'' said Goldman, who remembers her shedding copious tears over a failed romance. ''She was a woman of emotion, like an actress in an Italian movie.''
During these troubled years, she sought help in various New Age and Eastern religions and self-help programs.
She was living in New York when she encountered ''A Course in Miracles'' but did not immediately take to it. For a Jew, the references to Jesus were tough to swallow. A year later, however, she happened to pass the building where the books are published and resolved to get herself a set. That night, she said, she found them on her dining room table, a gift from her boyfriend. ''He said to me, 'I think it's time,' '' she recalled, citing the Eastern adage that ''when the student is ready, the teacher appears.''
By then, she said, ''I was so depressed that I didn't even notice the (Christian) language,'' she said.
She spent the next year reading the course ''passionately.'' What finally grabbed her was its message about forgiveness. ''I never realized you can't find peace in your life without forgiving other people,'' she said. ''I never knew how many of my problems stemmed from my fear of other people.''
Williamson, who attends High Holy Day services ''to make my mother happy,'' no longer feels that the ''Christic'' imagery, as she calls it, poses a problem. The words are used for their psychological rather than their religious significance, she said, emphasizing that the course has nothing to do with Jews for Jesus. ''No religion has a monopoly on the greatest story ever told,'' she added.
Williamson's career as a lecturer began in 1983, when she moved to Los Angeles and began working at the Philosophical Research Society, a center for metaphysical study. Kent Black, a colleague at the time, remembers ''a brassy, sassy Texas woman climbing out of a big desert cruiser'' in front of the society's office.
''She was wearing cowboy boots and her trunk was filled with books of miracles,'' Black said. ''She was the epitome of a Southern snake oil salesman. I thought she had a lot of chutzpah. She just elbowed her way in.''
It was a smart move, Black said, noting that the link to the society gave Williamson legitimacy. She readily agreed when she was asked to lecture on the course. One day, 75 people showed up to hear her and she was on her way.
Today, she lives modestly in a two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood with her 21-month-old daughter, India Emmanuelle, known as Emma, whose father she refuses to name. Williamson, who has dated producer Howard Koch Jr. and the actor Dwier Brown (''Field of Dreams''), is equally reticent about discussing the man she is currently seeing.
Even at home, wearing an oversize sweater and loose pants and no makeup, she is on stage, continually jumping up from her chair to move around the room. Suddenly, she is sitting cross-legged on the coffee table, jabbing a visitor's knee with her bare toes to emphasize a point. The next moment she has slid across the table and is lying on the couch. ''She has schpilkes ,'' said Dawn Steel, using a Yiddish expression meaning antsy .
Bringing the same theatricality to the discussion, Williamson raises her voice to a fevered pitch to discourse about the failures of the education system or the need for people to treat one another with respect. Many of her sentences begin, ''The problem with America today. . . .''
In 1987, she put into practice her longstanding social concerns by asking her friend and fellow metaphysician Louise Hay to help her create the Los Angeles Center for Living. As a result of her lectures, Williamson had counseled a number of people with ''life-challenging illnesses,'' as she calls them, especially AIDS, and envisioned a place where ''the natural forces of healing'' could be stimulated. The controversial Hay, a minister of the New Age Church of Religious Science who claims to have healed herself of cancer, had been holding weekly inspirational hayrides for people with the HIV virus.
Urging her audience to get involved in charitable activities, Williamson was able to draw hundreds of volunteers to the nonprofit center, which offers a variety of non-medical services. Two years later, she founded a similar organization in New York.
Each week Williamson herself leads a 90-minute support session for people with the AIDS virus at the Los Angeles center's office on Robertson Boulevard. She claims the meetings can prolong a participant's life. ''People who attend support groups who have been diagnosed with a life-challenging illness live on average twice as long after diagnosis as people who don't,'' she said.
At the support groups, Williamson steers the discussion away from medical issues, zeroing in on the spiritual. She is uncertain about reincarnation but believes that the experience commonly thought of as dying is actually a ''transition'' to another ''plane.'' The word death is not supposed to be uttered.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, 30 people crowded together in a light-filled room with salmon-colored walls, where a young man is talking about how life was ''gorgeous,'' despite the illness that is taking over his body.
''I love Marianne so much,'' the man says. ''AIDS is just a word, and I'm going to go roller-skating tonight.'' As the group applauds, Williamson observes that the ''spirit is impervious to illness.'' (Williamson asked that participants' names be omitted.)
An older couple, newcomers to this group, disclose that the husband's illness, stemming from a blood transfusion, is causing strains in their marriage. Frustrated because he is almost always too tired to be good company for his wife, the husband has withdrawn from her.
Never at a loss for a quick response, Williamson advises the husband, a retired aerospace administrator, that his illness need not impinge on his relationship with his wife. He can still listen to her fears and concerns, Williamson says; letting her express them will make her feel better.
''The AIDS virus is not more powerful than God,'' Williamson assures the couple in her throaty voice, asserting that the man's ''transition'' will not be ''the end of the story.'' The tension clouding the woman's face disappears. ''She really helped us,'' the woman says after the meeting. The husband is smiling. ''She knew exactly where to shoot that arrow,'' he said.
Even Williamson's critics concede she can rise to great heights of generosity. She took in a friend who had terminal cancer and often appears at the bedsides of the dying.
When his psychiatrist was out of town, Steve Sager went to see Williamson instead, free of charge. ''Marianne was very available to me,'' he said.
At the same time, disenchantment is widespread and building, especially since Jan. 7, when former West Hollywood Mayor Steve Schulte became the Los Angeles' center's third executive director in five years to be dismissed. Although Schulte was fired by the board of directors, it is widely believed that the decision was Williamson's and she concedes she was eager to see him go.
Like some of the others who have clashed with Williamson, Schulte did not buy into her spiritual program--a factor widely believed to have increased tensions between them.
Rallying around the popular Schulte, the staff has called for his reinstatement to the $60,000-a-year post and for Williamson's resignation as chairman of the board of directors. A majority of the 18-member work force has voted to join a union. They also want the current board--all Williamson loyalists--replaced by people without ties to her. Several complained that last September's elaborate and time-consuming ''Divine Design'' auction, although it netted $700,000, fell considerably short of its goals--an assertion Williamson does not dispute.
Many people who have worked with her say she has an explosive temper that erupts indiscriminately even in front of sick clients. They contend she is a ''control freak'' who insists on becoming involved in every detail and cannot bear to be upstaged or challenged. ''If you don't agree with Marianne you're not going to be around very long,'' said Dick DeVogeleare, a dismissed executive director who sued the center for breach of contract and later settled.
''Marianne is someone who likes to control everyone around her,'' said journalist Jean Halberstam, formerly on the Manhattan center's board.
Stung by the criticism, Williamson believes much of it is unfair and attributable to her high standards, her unwillingness to suffer incompetence and the pressure of staging high-profile fund-raising events. But acknowledging she has ''a style that needs work,'' she vowed to try to improve her interpersonal relationships.
''I understand the irony of the bitch for God,'' she said. ''This has not escaped my notice.''
Some employees defend her. Said John Campbell, a member of Williamson's lecture staff: ''Granted, she has a dramatic personality. But if you're competent, she gives you the longest, loosest rein.''
The first casualty of Williamson's penchant for drama may be the 3-year-old Manhattan center, now competing for donations with another nearby organization that provides similar services to people with AIDS. Cynthia O'Neal, an actress and the wife of actor and restaurateur Patrick O'Neal, had brought in close friends, such as Mike Nichols, Stephen Sondheim and Halberstam to serve on the center's board. But Williamson clashed with O'Neal and others over the center's management and the New Yorkers' seeming dismissal of her religious principles.
''Someone said you would hear checkbooks slamming shut all over Sotheby's (site of a fund-raising auction) if Marianne got up and led everyone in prayer,'' Halberstam said. ''I think she felt insulted.''
Not willing to be treated as expendable, Williamson fired her board and O'Neal wound up founding her own organization, now called Friends in Deed, taking Nichols and her other allies with her. As one indication of what Williamson has lost, Nichols and Elaine May recently announced plans to revive their 1950s comedy act for one night as a fund-raiser for the new organization. Williamson said O'Neal turned down her offer to consolidate their groups, but the two women maintain they are now on cordial terms.
While the conflict in New York was coming to a boil, Williamson was antagonizing some of her most important supporters in Los Angeles, including independent producer Howard Rosenman (''Shining Through,'' ''Father of the Bride''), photographer Michael Childers and decorator Waldo Fernandez--all people she could count on to attract famous names to the center's auctions.
According to a number of sources, Williamson and Rosenman have been feuding ever since he provoked her wrath by telling Vanity Fair magazine that she wants to be famous. Rosenman refuses to discuss Williamson publicly, saying only, ''She does great work.''
Last fall, in what appeared to others a preemptive move, Williamson purged her Los Angeles board of Rosenman, Childers, Fernandez and other members whose confidence she was losing. She said the change came about for a different reason: She herself had elected to step down as president and needed to ensure that her successor would be able to make a fresh start. Childers and Fernandez also declined to comment.
While Williamson currently holds the title of chairman, the smaller board is said to be entirely under her control. But board president David Kessler, who runs a nursing home for AIDS patients in West Hollywood, labeled this characterization ''insulting.''
As her problems with the board escalated, Williamson was having trouble getting along with Schulte, whom she accused of undermining her authority with the staff and ignoring urgent phone calls.
Williamson said she and Schulte, a Catholic who never developed an affinity for ''A Course in Miracles,'' had different approaches to running the center. He insisted on business plans, goals and memos ''while I pray and ask God for wisdom of the heart,'' she explained.
She expressed the hope that the next director will be someone who understands ''the spiritual principles we're trying to come from . . . I am not apologizing for God in this organization.''
Several staffers accused Williamson of disregarding those principles herself in her dealings with them. ''She talks that talk but she don't walk that walk,'' said one center employee, who wished to remain anonymous.
For her part, Williamson alternates between contrition and defensiveness when discussing these problems. ''I have a gruff side,'' she said. ''This is not exactly news. . . . At the same time, anyone who wants to judge me for this can walk a mile in my moccasins. And then we'll talk.''
Times research librarian Dorothy Ingebretsen assisted with this article.
WinRed
Deep State: Follow the Rothschild, Soros, and Rockefeller Money
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:05
With almost unlimited capital, Wall Street moneymen use it to centralize government. Their plans smack of worldwide crony capitalism, with government rules made to order.
It may sound clich(C), but there is a great deal of wisdom in the old saying about catching criminals: ''Follow the money.'' That advice applies as much to catching small-time petty thieves as it does to big-time global crime syndicates. And it is especially relevant when trying to understand the bureaucratic and intelligence community components of the Deep State, and more importantly, the Deep State behind the Deep State. This shadowy network, which is barely concealed at this point, includes secret societies such as Skull and Bones and the Bohemian Grove, as well as less-secretive organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg meetings. Money is key.
Of course, as used by the establishment media, what has typically been referred to in recent months as the ''Deep State'' is simply just different parts of the federal government, particularly the permanent bureaucratic caste and what is known as the ''intelligence community.'' However, that is only part of the story. Others who have commented on this subject have noted the prominence of the Big Business community and Wall Street in regards to the Deep State. Former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, a top-secret security clearance holder and one of the early voices to develop the idea of a ''Deep State'' in America, refers to it as ''a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country.''
Wall Street and the Deep State
In particular, Lofgren has noted that Wall Street and D.C. are crucial. ''Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not the only one,'' argued Lofgren, who wrote a book on the subject before Donald Trump became president. ''Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests.'' Of course, Lofgren is correct. But the proverbial ''rabbit hole'' goes even deeper.
Wall Street, and especially outfits such as ''vampire squid'' Goldman Sachs, are indeed essential elements of the Deep State. But the reality is even worse than Lofgren seems to realize. An explosive 2011 Swiss study published in the PLOS ONE journal on the ''network of global corporate control,'' for instance, highlights the fact that a tiny group of entities '-- mostly financial institutions and especially central banks '-- exerts a massive amount of influence over the international economy from behind the scenes. According to the peer-reviewed paper, which presented the first global investigation of ownership and control architecture in the international economy, transnational corporations form a ''giant bow-tie structure.'' A large portion of control ''flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions,'' investigators found, describing the core as an ''economic super-entity.'' Not surprisingly, this economic super-entity is dominated by members of the Deep State behind the Deep State '-- a relatively tiny group of individuals with unfathomable power and influence. The individuals in control of a tiny handful of mega-banks '-- especially Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse, among a handful of others '-- are at the very center of it all.
Lofgren was not the first observer to realize or point out that the elected officials ostensibly in charge of governing America are not really in charge. Even close friends and associates of the Deep State behind the Deep State have commented on the issue. The late Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley, a mentor to President Bill Clinton, was close to the core of the Deep State for years, and, while he disagreed with the secrecy, he admitted to agreeing with most of its aims. He was even allowed to examine their records for a period of time. And then, spilling the proverbial beans, Quigley put some of his explosive findings in his massive 1966 book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time.
Quigley offered extremely important insight into the agenda, especially the monetary machinations, of the real Deep State. ''The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole,'' he explained on page 324. ''This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.''
Indeed, just as Quigley explained, the world now exists under what could fairly be described as a neofeudalist-type system. And international entities such as the Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank play key roles in it all. Another crucial component of that involves control of the economy and even the political systems of nations by a tiny clique, which exercises its power quietly through well-connected mega-banks that literally own the central banks. The Federal Reserve, for instance, is essentially a banking cartel, with each regional Federal Reserve bank owned and controlled by its member banks. In court filings, the ''Federal Reserve'' banks have even boldly declared that laws applicable to government agencies such as transparency requirements do not apply to Fed banks because they are private corporations.
That the Federal Reserve System dominates the U.S. economy today is impossible to dispute '-- simply observe the news coverage and endless media speculation ahead of the Fed meetings about what the central planners may or may not decide to do about interest rates. Consider, also, that amid the last economic crisis, the U.S. Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) estimated the potential total cost of the combined crisis bailouts at $23.7 trillion, with a T, or more than $75,000 per person in the United States '-- money created out of thin air by unelected, unaccountable central bankers. For perspective, the U.S. GDP is around $18 trillion. Those bailed out were largely the mega-banks and cronies of Federal Reserve bosses. Consider, too, that studies such as one released in 2014 by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) show that central banks, including the Fed, now dominate even stock markets, with some of them even buying and selling stocks directly using money conjured into existence out of thin air. They also rig prices for all sorts of assets, as The New American and many other sources have documented and Fed bosses have admitted publicly. In 1998, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified to Congress that ''central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise,'' thereby keeping prices down.
And according to top officials, many of these mega-bankers are beyond being ''too big to fail'' and being bailed out by unwitting American savers and taxpayers; they are also ''too big to jail,'' giving them free rein to perpetrate crimes at will. On March 6, 2013, testifying before a Senate committee, former Attorney General Eric Holder even said it explicitly: ''I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.''
Deep State Moneymen Love Globalism and Communism
Senior leaders of the Deep State behind the Deep State, which uses central banks and political institutions to advance its objectives, have boasted of their agenda and their power. The late David Rockefeller, formerly CEO of Chase Manhattan mega-bank and a leading Deep State boss involved in the leadership of the Bilderberg meetings, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations, revealed his true colors '-- in writing '-- in his 2002 autobiography Memoirs. ''Some even believe we [the Rockefellers] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure '-- one world, if you will,'' Rockefeller explains on page 405. ''If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.'' In short, the powerful globalist boasted of being a conspirator working against America in favor of a one-world system.
The Deep State's supposedly ''capitalist'' money men have no aversion to communism, either, as Quigley revealed in his book. Decades before the startling admission in his own memoirs, Rockefeller himself showered praises on the most murderous dictatorship to plague humanity in all of recorded history. ''Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded, not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering a high morale and community purpose,'' Rockefeller claimed in a 1973 New York Times piece about Mao Tse-tung's ''communist revolution'' that murdered tens of millions of people in cold blood. ''The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.'' For Deep State luminaries such as Rockefeller, then, mass murder and total subjugation of a people is a tremendous ''success.'' So we can safely conclude that the success or failure of the globalist world order Rockefeller and his cronies is aiming for will not be decided on how well it cares for the middle and lower classes.
More recently, fellow Deep State bigwig George Soros, another key moneyman, and a prot(C)g(C) of the even more powerful and wealthy Rothschild dynasty, echoed those remarks about Communist China. In 2009, for instance, Soros called for the communist regime enslaving mainland China to ''own'' what he referred to as the ''New World Order.'' Speaking to the Financial Times, the self-styled philanthropist declared that the United States and the U.S. dollar were on their way down, and that the Communist Party regime must step up to the plate. ''I think you really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order,'' Soros said, without noting that the regime has murdered more people than any other in human history. ''I think you need a new world order, that China has to be part of the process of creating it and they have to buy in, they have to own it in the same way as the United States owns '... the current order.''
It was hardly a slip up. The next year, while receiving the Globalist of the Year award from the Canadian International Council, Soros again called for China to play a lead role in the emerging global-governance regime. ''They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well,'' declared Soros, a self-styled atheist who has said publicly that he feels like a ''god'' sometimes. ''Today, China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States.'' From Beijing to Moscow and Washington, D.C., to London, globalist Deep State operatives are all openly and covertly pushing for this new world order, which is being built through regional orders such as the European Union, the African Union, the Eurasian Union, the Union of South American States, and more as explained by so many globalist schemers.
While rarely in the spotlight, the Rothschild banking dynasty '-- the ultimate Deep State characters '-- is at the center of the rigged global financial system. The Rothschilds are wealthy and powerful beyond comprehension. On its website, Rothschild & Co, one of the many Rothschild banking operations, styles itself ''one of the world's largest independent financial advisory groups,'' providing services and solutions to ''large institutions, families, individuals and governments, worldwide.'' ''Having been at the centre of the world's financial markets for more than 200 years we can rely on an unrivalled global network of more than 2,800 talented employees and a track-record of outstanding execution with 50 offices around the world,'' the website boasts in what might even be an understatement, adding that Rothschild & Co ''can be closer to current issues than any other global financial institution in our core markets.'' They are not kidding. Estimates of the ultra-secretive dynasty's wealth reach into the trillions of dollars.
The power of this dynasty is well known to historians and insiders, and it stretches back centuries. ''The Rothschilds had decided the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars by putting their financial weight behind Britain,'' noted historian and establishment apologist Niall Ferguson in his book The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild. In other words, even more than two centuries ago, this dynasty, which is deeply involved in the global central-banking regime described by Quigley, was able to decide the outcome of wars between two of the most powerful governments then existing on the planet. Since then, the dynasty's power and wealth appear to have grown even further, owning businesses in financial services, real estate, mining, energy, agriculture, winemaking, and more, despite efforts to stay out of the limelight. Further highlighting the affinity of these supposed ''super-capitalists'' for communism, though, a leading member of the Rothschild dynasty, Baron Eric de Rothschild, publicly came out to help push the candidacy of Bulgarian Communist Party operative Irina Bokova to lead the United Nations as secretary-general.
Deep State Foundations Finance Evil
Many of the globalist bigwigs, such as the Rockefellers, Soros, the Rothschild dynasty, and dozens more like them, operate through tax-exempt foundations. Aside from helping shelter the Deep State moneymen from the same onerous taxation they promote, these foundations make up another key component of the Deep State's financial architecture. The Rockefeller dynasty, for instance, operates a massive network of foundations with many billions of dollars. It includes the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and more. These, in turn, finance other tax-exempt foundations used to promote their agenda. Soros, meanwhile, just transferred $18 billion into his Open Society Foundations, which in turn finance hundreds of organizations, foundations, and causes around the world. Other mega-foundations controlled by the Deep State behind the Deep State include the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and many more. Each plays a unique but essential role.
To understand how crucial these tax-exempt foundations are to advancing the real Deep State's agenda, a simple overview of their actions provides some idea. The Soros network of foundations, for instance, promotes everything from globalism and statism to racial hatred and abortion, even funding training programs to teach European pastors to promote the European Union to their congregations. Leaks in recent years have revealed that the Open Society Foundations even fund a wide range of pseudo-Christian groups that aim to corrupt and hijack Christianity and churches '-- the pro-abortion group Catholics for Choice, for instance, or training programs for Orthodox pastors in non-EU nations designed to have those spiritual leaders lead their flocks into the transnational superstate. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, meanwhile, finances everything anti-American, from Planned Parenthood and population control to K-12 Common Core school standards and efforts to globalize ''education.'' The Rockefellers have funded issues from pseudo-environmentalism and globalism to statism and feminism. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Consider the ''Green'' movement. In 2014, a report by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee exposed the network of billionaires and their foundations that it referred to as the ''Billionaires Club.'' This club, the report said, was responsible for creating an AstroTurf ''Green'' movement that hijacked vast swaths of the federal policymaking apparatus. The explosive 92-page study, entitled ''The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama's EPA,'' exposes the tactics, too. Among other schemes, the network relies on an ''incredibly sophisticated'' system of front groups and the exploitation of loopholes in the tax code. The Billionaires Club's machinations also involve ''a close knit network of like-minded funders, environmental activists, and government bureaucrats who specialize in manufacturing phony 'grassroots' movements and in promoting bogus propaganda disguised as science and news to spread an anti-fossil energy message to the unknowing public,'' the report said.
In some cases, the network funds pseudo-scientific research, too. The findings are then disseminated by far-left ''media'' outlets such as the Huffington Post and Mother Jones that are also receiving Billionaires Club funds. ''In one example, a story reporting on a Park Foundation-supported anti-fracking study was reproduced by a Park-funded news organization through a Park-funded media collaboration where it was then further disseminated on Twitter by the maker of Park-backed anti-fracking movies,'' the report found. Three radical outfits in particular were identified as serving key roles in the scheming of the network: the Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Democracy Alliance, and the Divest/Invest movement. Other crucial components of the phony grassroots network involved in financing the deception and extremism include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Schmidt Family Foundation created by Google boss Eric Schmidt, and the infamous Heinz Family Foundation largely controlled by former Secretary of State John Kerry's wife.
The abuse of these tax-exempt foundations by the Deep State behind the Deep State to subvert freedom in the United States and worldwide is hardly new. In fact, in 1952, Congress created the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations, sometimes known as the Cox Committee and the Reece Committee after its two chairmen. Among other tasks, it was supposed to look into whether the foundations were supporting communism. It turns out that they were, but the reality was even worse. In an explosive interview with G. Edward Griffin released in 1991, Norman Dodd, the staff director of the committee, explained just how serious the threat was '-- and presumably still is.
According to Dodd, H. Rowan Gaither, who was the president of the Ford Foundation at the time, summoned Dodd to his office in New York. Dodd said that Gaither asked him, ''off the record,'' why Congress was interested in investigating the activities of foundations such as the Ford Foundation. But before Dodd could even answer, Gaither noted, among other things, that many of those involved in policymaking at the foundation had been involved in the ''intelligence'' agencies, which were filled with communists in high places, and that policy directives for the foundations were coming out of the White House. Then, according to Dodd, Gaither dropped a bombshell: ''Mr. Dodd, we are here to operate in response to similar directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant-making power to so alter life in the United States, that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.'' Read that sentence again and let it sink in.
The final report itself was revealing, too. ''Some of the larger foundations have directly supported subversion in the true meaning of that term '-- namely, the process of undermining some of our vitally protective concepts and principles,'' the investigators found, adding that the foundations were promoting internationalism and moral relativism. ''They have actively supported attacks upon our social and governmental system and financed the promotion of socialism and collectivist ideas,'' the report continued. Of course, this continues to this day. In his report, Dodd also argued that the mega-foundations were weaponizing the government ''education'' system to enable oligarchical collectivism. He noted, too, that a ''revolution'' had occurred that would never have been possible ''unless education in the United States had been prepared in advance to endorse it.'' The corruption of America's ''education'' regime stretches back to progressive humanist John Dewey (not to be confused with Melvil Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System), who was financed by one of the Rockefellers' tax-exempt foundations and is today known as the ''father'' of America's government-education regime. Today, the Gates, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations, among others, continue the work.
Other analysts have documented Wall Street and Deep State money men support for communism and subversion going back even further than that. In his book Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, for instance, Stanford historian Antony Sutton exposed the key role played by certain Wall Street financiers in establishing communist tyranny in Russia, financing communism, profiting from communism, and more. The book shows also that Wall Street forces worked hard to ensure that revolutionary Leon Trostky could make it to Russia to help the process along. And they even helped the cause of global slavery by building up the Soviet economy and war machine. The results of this included the murder of more than 100 million people and the enslavement of billions more. China, Cuba, and many other nations were similarly enslaved under communist regimes with the fervent assistance of ''Deep State'' moneymen and government operatives, as this magazine has documented for decades.
Today, the Deep State and the forces behind it '-- secret and semi-secret organizations and networks, as well as their interlinked financial operations and ''intelligence'' agencies '-- are closer than ever before to their goal of global totalitarianism frequently touted as the ''New World Order.'' However, they are also closer than ever before to being completely exposed, as millions of people around the world wake up. Humanity and the Deep State are in a race against time. If the Deep State wins, liberty and self-government die. The stakes are that high. But everyone can help. Start by reading the articles on the Deep State. Then, get involved. The future of freedom is on the line. And as any good criminal investigator knows, a good place to start is to follow the money. While the Deep State moneymen have a solid grip on the government, they are not in full control of state legislatures or either house of Congress. It is way past time for Congress to hold hearings and investigate.
Photo: robertcicchetti/iStock/GettyImagesPlus
This article originally appeared in The New American's special report on the Deep State. To order the report, click here.
Related articles:
Pulling Strings From Behind the Scenes
Deep State Bureaucracy vs. Trump, America, Constitution
Underbelly of the Intelligence Community
Deep State Behind the Deep State: CFR, Trilateralists, Bilderbergs
Follow the Rothschild, Soros, and Rockefeller Money
Secret Societies: Skull & Bones, Bohemians, Illuminati
Exposing the Deep State
The $1 million upside for an RNC digital guru - POLITICO
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:52
The Republican Party's top digital strategist in 2016 got a nearly $1 million payout from a firm he co-founded that collected online contributions to the party and its nominee, Donald Trump '-- despite earlier claims that the strategist had severed his ties to the company.
Gerrit Lansing's joint roles, while legal, have raised questions of cronyism and profit-making at the Republican National Committee '-- and now sparked an internal review ''to prevent a situation like this from happening again,'' the RNC told POLITICO in a statement.
Story Continued Below
Republican operatives representing multiple GOP presidential and Senate campaigns said that Lansing pushed them to use the company he co-founded, Revv, to collect their online donations after he was hired for the top RNC job '-- and that he used the fact that the RNC was using his platform as a selling point. Lansing was subsequently named to a top role in Trump's White House.
The controversy puts White House press secretary Sean Spicer in an awkward spot. As the RNC's chief strategist, Spicer denied to POLITICO in mid-2016 that Lansing had any financial stake in Revv.
''He has zero connection to Revv,'' Spicer said then. ''He had to sever the ties.''
In fact, Lansing never did. He received a $909,000 payout from the company last year.
''The statement that was issued last year was based on information provided by Gerrit,'' Spicer told POLITICO this week.
Revv allows for one-click donations across multiple campaigns, which makes it easier for donors to give once they're in the company's database. Revv makes its money by taking a small slice '-- typically 1 percent or less '-- of each contribution for itself.
Revv's relationship with the RNC and Trump has given it an invaluable database of credit card information, vaulting it from a newcomer to a dominant player in the obscure-yet-lucrative corner of the digital campaign world.
Lansing's stake is so valuable that he was unwilling to cut financial ties to the company in order to clear White House ethics requirements, which was one of the reasons he left the administration in February, after a month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Lansing declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure and said that none of his $909,000 payment was derived from the RNC's direct use of Revv but instead came from its other clients.
''I am extremely proud to have founded and personally financed an app that revolutionizes the way Republicans raise money online,'' Lansing said in a written statement. ''Revv helped solve one of the largest tech problems on the right and I look forward to continuing that work.''
POLITICO documented Lansing's links through federal financial disclosures released last month, Federal Election Commission filings, email records, and interviews with more than a dozen officials and strategists who interacted with Lansing, Revv and the RNC.
Ron Steslow, who served as digital director on the Carly Fiorina campaign, said Lansing came to his office to pitch Revv in May 2015, 10 days after he was announced as the RNC's chief digital officer. Lansing began working full-time at the RNC the following month.
''I asked Gerrit if the RNC was OK with him pitching a product he owns and running the business while holding a senior position there '-- and I noted how bad that looked,'' Steslow recalled. ''He said he had negotiated a deal and had permission, alluding to the fact the RNC had had difficulty finding qualified candidates for the role. So, essentially their competitive advantage was the conflict of interest itself. I was really bothered by the audacity of that.''
In client pitches, Lansing's Revv co-founder, who continued to run the business after Lansing started working for the RNC, would sometimes copy Lansing on messages to prospects, using his Revv.co email address, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO.
Those on the receiving end saw the inclusion of Lansing on the emails as a pressure tactic. ''It was very blatant,'' said one GOP strategist who received such an email but wished to remain anonymous to protect relationships in the close-knit political digital world.
Lansing said none of his Revv income came from the RNC account. The party's joint fundraising committee with Trump's campaign, as well as the presidential campaign itself, were Revv's largest patrons. Together, they paid the company more than $2.5 million in the last six months of 2016, according to FEC records.
The RNC said in a statement that it ''had an understanding Gerrit would not receive any compensation from Revv while also employed by the RNC and was unaware of any compensation he received until financial disclosures were publicly released. Gerrit remained a passive owner but was not to take outside income from Revv while employed by the RNC.''
Lansing said he received only a single payment from Revv, in December, after the election. He also said the majority of the $909,000 payment consisted of repaying a personal loan to the company. The loan was valued at between $250,000 and $500,000, according to his financial disclosure, and he pocketed between $15,000 and $50,000 in interest.
The payout Lansing received from Revv in 2016 was more than four times the $220,000 in compensation he earned as the chief digital officer of the Republican National Committee.
Lansing was on the RNC payroll through the end of 2016, receiving a paycheck as late as Dec. 21.
The RNC has now begun an internal inquiry: ''The RNC is currently conducting a review and will implement new procedures for staff to prevent a situation like this from happening again.''
Federal disclosures outline the extent of Lansing's connection to Revv dating to the firm's founding in December 2014. Lansing is still the majority shareholder in Revv and estimated the value of his ownership share at between $1 million and $5 million in his filing.
In its statement, the RNC said Lansing was ''not involved in negotiations to use the platform'' at the party and that Revv ''provided a product that filled a role the committee needed in order to compete with Democrat online fundraising.'' (Trump himself has once weighed in personally on Lansing, tweeting in 2013, ''I am hearing that @NRCC Digital Director @lansing is doing great work expanding and modernizing @GOP social media. Good '' we need it.'')
Brad Parscale, Trump's digital director, said that, while he understood the potential perception of a conflict, he was unaware Revv was owned in part by Lansing when he selected it. Parscale said he picked Revv because it was ''technologically superior.''
''I thought it was technologically advanced over all the other choices,'' he said.
Yet others, most of whom would speak only on condition of anonymity, said it was clear that Revv leveraged its relationship with the RNC to scale up quickly.
''I asked what their plan was to grow that user base fast enough to be valuable in the current election cycle,'' Steslow said of his meeting with Lansing and another Revv co-founder. ''Their answer was their relationships at the RNC and NRCC '--and that the RNC would be switching to Revv very soon, bringing all of those donors onto the platform.''
With Lansing installed atop the RNC's digital shop, the RNC switched to Revv to process donations. After he became the Republican nominee, Trump dropped the vendor he had used during the primary, Targeted Victory, in favor of Revv. Targeted Victory declined to comment.
Revv makes its money by charging clients 4 percent of every donation, plus a 30-cent transaction fee, according to its website. Most of those funds go to pay credit-card fees to Visa or MasterCard, and a share goes to Stripe, the processing platform on which Revv is built.
Revv gets to keep the rest as profit. It is impossible to track exactly how much money Revv made in 2016 '-- it counts more than 130 clients, Lansing said '-- because most campaigns list payments to Stripe, not Revv.
An archived version of the company's page on a startup website said it had credit-card information stored for 6,500 users a week before the Iowa caucuses. Now, Revv touts more than 100 times that: ''In less than two years, Revv processed over $300,000,000 in donations from over 3 [million] donors with over 800,000 saved profiles,'' its website says.
Ben Schreckinger contributed to this report.
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Trump Aims to Reform GOP Fundraising; Consultant Class Pushes Back
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:46
President Donald Trump, his 2020 re-election campaign, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are attempting to revolutionize GOP fundraising by bringing the whole process for all party candidates under one roof in an outfit called ''WinRed,'' but some in the consultant class who stand to lose significant business are fighting back against it.Democrats have had, for more than a decade under their banner fundraising tool ''ActBlue,'' essential uniformity, especially among small-dollar donors with a tool that allows them to, at peak effectiveness, steer dollars to where they are most needed to win elections. Republicans, because they have used a variety of fundraising vendors and tools across a disparate array of firms, have essentially been at a disadvantage as a party.
In late June, Politico's Alex Isenstadt explained the thinking behind WinRed in a piece just ahead of its launch:
Republicans are set to launch a long-awaited, much-delayed online fundraising platform on Monday, a move aimed at closing Democrats' massive small-donor money advantage ahead of the 2020 election.
WinRed is being billed as the GOP's answer to the Democratic Party's ActBlue, which has already amassed over $174 million this year. The new tool is intended to reshape the GOP's fundraising apparatus by creating a centralized, one-stop shop for online Republican giving, which the party has lacked to this point.
The launch caps months of behind-the-scenes discussions involving top Republicans. President Donald Trump and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner were involved, as were GOP congressional leaders and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. The end product, Republican leaders hope, will fill a gaping void in the party's machinery.
The RNC and the Trump campaign envision WinRed as the future of GOP fundraising.
''WinRed has the full backing of President Trump and his campaign,'' Mike Reed, a senior RNC official, told Breitbart News on Friday. ''WinRed is a revolutionary tool in the fundraising arsenal for Republicans that will transform the way GOP candidates and conservative causes across the country raise money. This platform offers candidates and committees convenience, a user-friendly interface, and allows them to efficiently raise money while allowing supporters to more effectively donate to candidates with like-minded beliefs.''
Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, added in a statement to Breitbart News that the GOP committees and president's campaign are fully behind WinRed and expect all candidates, state parties, and other political action committees (PACs) affiliated with the GOP to get on the WinRed platform.
''There's a reason President Trump and all the major GOP campaign committees are united behind WinRed: it has the best technology and data integration that will lift all conservative boats and actually help Republicans win in 2020,'' Parscale said.
Republican officials insist that all candidates will have access to the WinRed platform, no Republican will be barred from it for any reason including anti-establishment primary challengers, and that all candidates and party committees nationwide are encouraged to sign onto it because uniformity on this front is the only way the GOP can create a true grassroots countermeasure to the left's ActBlue fundraising machine. Putting their finger on the scale by barring anyone access to the platform, party officials agree, would be harmful to the overall goal of building a grassroots machine that they say they only have an opportunity while Trump is president to get up and running because of his unique ability to connect with small-dollar donors. In other words, the GOP views this setup as the long-term future of the party's fundraising apparatus and is working to ensure that they seize this chance to implement it party-wide.
A problem Republicans are running into as they seek to implement WinRed across the GOP with all candidates and committees is pushback from consultants with other competing technology. For it to process fundraising donations, WinRed has contracted with Revv''which is a vendor that serves a back-end fundraising platform. Trump's campaign has used Revv for years. Competing processor Anedot has created a competing website that used the RNC's and the president's likeness to try to hit back at the party for not being the selected vendor.
Part of the reason why party officials selected Revv over Anedot, however, is because Revv is partisan and only works with Republicans, but Anedot is nonpartisan and does work with candidates and people outside the Republican Party. While Democrats are all on ActBlue, Anedot has done fundraising work with Never Trump types like Evan McMullin and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld''who is challenging Trump in the GOP primary in 2020, but polling in the single digits at best''and bills itself as a nonpartisan firm. Revv, on the other hand, is partisan''and only works with Republicans''hence the GOP's decision to choose that route as the way to go.
''The decision to not use Anedot was made in part because of their long history of working with scam PACs,'' the RNC's Reed added in his quote to Breitbart News. ''Anedot also positions itself as a non-partisan entity. It obviously makes more sense for the RNC to work with a platform that is aligned completely with the Republican Party and the president.''
But Anedot, which previously has done significant amounts of work with many senior Republicans, ranging from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to House GOP leaders to many state parties and lawmakers across the party, stands to lose that business as the RNC and GOP across the board make the shift to WinRed and, by extension, Revv. As such, in response, Anedot recently launched a website called Give.GOP that, until the GOP sent cease-and-desist letters demanding they be removed, included imagery that had the GOP's likeness on them.
In a follow-up story this week, Politico's Isenstadt wrote about the rising tensions inside the GOP over the WinRed fight with Anedot:
Tensions over the future of the GOP's grassroots fundraising are reaching a breaking point, with the national party turning to strong-arm tactics to get Republicans behind its new, Donald Trump-endorsed platform for small donors.
The Republican National Committee is threatening to withhold support from party candidates who refuse to use WinRed, the party's newly established online fundraising tool. And the RNC, along with the party's Senate and gubernatorial campaign arms, are threatening legal action against a rival donation vehicle.
The moves illustrate how Republican leaders are waging a determined campaign to make WinRed the sole provider of its small donor infrastructure '-- and to torpedo any competitors.
On Monday, the RNC sent an eight-page cease-and-desist letter to Paul Dietzel, a Republican digital strategist who earlier this month launched Give.GOP, a fundraising platform that includes a directory through which donors can give to party candidates and organizations. In the letter, RNC chief counsel Justin Riemer writes that while Give.GOP has a page inviting donors to give to the RNC, the committee hasn't yet received any funds from the platform or received any outreach from it. Riemer also accuses Dietzel of using the committee's trademark and logo without its permission.
The cease-and-desist letter from the RNC, provided to Breitbart News, also questions where the money from Give.GOP is going and how it would be provided to the party committees if it does end up going there. There is no answer to that question from the Anedot leaders at this stage, which has party leaders concerned that anyone who gives to Give.GOP could be getting hoodwinked into donating to a structure that does not help the party or the president or Republican candidates but, instead, is enriching political consultants attempting to hold onto the cash flow they are likely to lose if WinRed is implemented across the board as the Trump campaign and party officials envision.
Regarding the Anedot situation, Trump's campaign manager, Parscale, in his quote to Breitbart News, described it as a ''scheme'' that hurts the GOP and helps Democrats.
''This is the same kind of scheme that has prevented Republicans for having an answer to ActBlue for 15 years,'' Parscale said.
While WinRed was just rolled out a couple of weeks ago, party officials are working across the country with candidates, state parties, and other party fundraising vehicles to implement it universally''and are convinced that if it can be utilized everywhere, they can stand up to ActBlue once and for all down the road. It remains to be seen if the GOP will be successful in doing this, but if they pull it off''and if they are able to do it without hurting grassroots anti-establishment candidates''it could, in theory, be a major step forward for Republicans. Couple this machine with GOP fundraising numbers at record levels, and Republicans believe they can significantly strengthen their chances in elections down the road long into the future.
2020 Democrats blast big brands on the campaign trail - Axios
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:52
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StoriesIllustration: A¯da Amer/Axios
Democratic candidates are taking shots at big companies on the campaign trail, testing which messages resonate with voters and creating adversaries out of legacy companies that don't have much political wiggle room to fight back.
Why it matters: There's more pressure on companies to stand for social policies today than ever before. But unlike candidates, brands risk losing trust if they hit back too hard on certain issues, which is why they tend to respond more slowly. More progressive candidates are taking advantage of that dynamic this cycle.
Tulsi Gabbard: "Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief" - Sara A. Carter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 04:21
''I think one of the things I'm most concerned with is Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief, and I can say this from a personal perspective as a soldier,'' said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, during an appearance on Fox Sports Radio's ''Outkick the Coverage with Clay Travis.''
''She's got no background or experience in foreign policy and she lacks the temperament that is necessary for a commander-in-chief.''
''I've seen the cost of war firsthand,'' Gabbard continued. ''I've experienced the consequences of what happens when we have presidents, as we have from both political parties in the White House, who lack experience, who lack that foreign policy understanding, who therefore fall under the influence of the foreign policy establishment, the military-industrial complex. This is what's so dangerous. This is what we've seen occurring over time.''
Think of the Children
A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Let Loose in the Night Woods - The New York Times
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 13:16
Netherlands Dispatch
Far from the land of helicopter parenting, getting 'dropped' in the forest is a beloved scouting tradition.
Image In the Dutch scouting tradition known as ''dropping,'' groups of children, generally pre-teenagers, are deposited in a forest and expected to find their way back to base. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times AUSTERLITZ, the Netherlands '-- Shortly after 10 p.m. on a recent night, a car came to a stop at the edge of the woods. The door opened to release three children: towheaded boys of 12 and 15, and a 12-year-old girl with dark pigtails and an emoji-covered backpack. Then the driver threw the car into gear and sped away, gravel crunching under its tires.
They were tiny figures at the foot of the forest, miles from the summer camp they were attending, with only a primitive GPS to indicate the right direction. Darkness was falling. And they were alone.
They peered into the night: Was this the path?
''Could be,'' said Thomas, the 12-year-old team leader.
And then, because there was nothing else to do, they plunged into the woods.
This is the Dutch scouting tradition known as a ''dropping,'' in which groups of children, generally pre-teenagers, are deposited in a forest and expected to find their way back to base. It is meant to be challenging, and they often stagger in at 2 or 3 in the morning.
Image To make it more difficult, adult organizers may blindfold the children on their way to the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Image Many adults look back on their dropping experiences fondly. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times In some variations of the challenge, loosely based on military exercises, adults trail the teams of children, but refuse to guide them, although they may leave cryptic notes as clues. To make it more difficult, adult organizers may even blindfold the children on their way to the dropping, or drive in loop-de-loops to scramble their sense of direction.
Sometimes, they hide in the underbrush and make noises like a wild boar.
If this sounds a little crazy to you, it is because you are not Dutch.
The Dutch '-- it is fair to say '-- do childhood differently. Children are taught not to depend too much on adults; adults are taught to allow children to solve their own problems. Droppings distill these principles into extreme form, banking on the idea that even for children who are tired, hungry and disoriented, there is a compensatory thrill to being in charge.
Certainly, many adults in the Netherlands look back on their droppings fondly. Rik Oudega, a 22-year-old scout leader, recalled being pulled over by police as he drove the wrong way on a one-way road on his way to a dropping. His heart sank, he said, ''because what I did was against the law.''
The officers pulled up beside him and asked him to roll down his window. They peered into the back seat of his car, where there were four children in blindfolds, which, Mr. Oudega said, ''is not really allowed either.''
Mr. Oudega tried to look wholesome. ''I'm here on a dropping,'' he told them, hoping for the best.
''They looked at each other, then they smiled at me and said: 'Have a good evening. And try to follow the rules.'''
Image A forest not far from Utrecht, the site of the recent dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Image A group of scouts before the start of the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times The children on the dropping in Austerlitz, not far from Utrecht, walked into the woods, and the smell of pine needles rose from the sandy earth. The forest floor was patched with ink-black moss. A half-moon had appeared in the sky.
For a few minutes, there was the sound of cars on a road, but then that, too, quieted. The woods closed in, becoming dense.
That night was the first dropping for Stijn Jongewaard, an 11-year-old boy with jutting ears, who claimed to have learned English from Minecraft video games and ''Hawaii Five-O.'' At home, he spends much of his leisure time planted in front of his PlayStation. This is one reason his parents have sent him to camp. He has never been lost in the woods before.
His mother, Tamara, said that the time had come for him to take on greater responsibility, and that the dropping was one step in that direction.
''Stijn is 11,'' she said. ''The time window in which we can teach him is closing. He is going into adolescence, and then he will make decisions for himself.''
After they had been walking for half an hour, the group turned off the path and into the forest, then paused, stood in conference for a few minutes, and reversed themselves. Ten yards off the path, a huge body leapt, thrusting, behind the leaves, and the children startled. A deer.
Image Pausing during the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Image Scouts rely only on a primitive GPS to indicate the right direction. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times If you peruse the Dutch newspapers with sufficient attention, you will find evidence of droppings gone awry. In 2012, German media reported that five Dutch boys on a dropping in Germany called local police to extract them from the narrow space where they had become stuck, between a rock face and a ventilation duct.
A ''perilous adventure,'' the Germans reported.
But Dutch journalists were unimpressed at all the fuss, mocking it as a ''droppingsdrama'' and ''a bit romanticized.'' ''The dropping is often the most exciting part of a camping trip,'' explained one follow-up article.
Another report surfaced in 2017, when scout leaders in Belgium dropped 25 children in the woods, then drank a number of beers and fell asleep, leaving the children wandering in the forest after their appointed pickup time. The campers finally rang someone's doorbell and got a ride.
''The parents,'' the newspaper noted somberly, ''were not satisfied with the incident.''
Droppings are such a normal part of Dutch childhood that many there are surprised to be asked about it, assuming it is common to every country. But Pia de Jong, a novelist who has raised her children in New Jersey, said it reflected something particular about the Dutch philosophy of parenting.
Image Droppings are such a normal part of Dutch childhood that many in the Netherlands are surprised to be asked about it. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Image Danil Bos, a scout, before the start of the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times ''You just drop your kids into the world,'' she said. ''Of course, you make sure they don't die, but other than that, they have to find their own way.''
Still, Ms. de Jong, 58, has begun to question whether droppings are really all that fun. ''Imagine that you are lost and have no idea where to go,'' she said. ''It could be 10 hours, it could be the whole night, you just don't know. It is late and long and people are a little frightened.''
She paused, in thought. ''I don't think it's a nice thing to do to kids, actually,'' she said.
In 2011 and 2014, children on droppings were fatally struck by cars while walking alongside roads. Since then, the practice has become far more regulated.
The dropping team does carry a cellphone in case of emergency, and the scouting association requires participants to wear high-visibility vests and distributes a long list of guidelines, mainly geared toward traffic safety. ''Pushing boundaries is fun,'' reads one recommendation, ''but that, too, has boundaries.''
The scout leaders of the recent dropping, staring into the embers of a campfire, murmured about the proliferating paperwork, the way childhood has softened in recent years. ''Society is changing,'' Mr. Oudega said. ''It's a miracle that we are allowed to have a fire.''
But the core experience of dropping, he added, has not changed.
''It really is being on your own,'' he said. ''It really does make you feel that you are in charge.''
Image Enjoying a meal after the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times Image Demi de Winter, another scout, during the dropping. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times By 1 a.m., Stijn and the other campers were well into their third hour of hiking. They trudged along a paved road in single file, too drained for conversation. Fifteen minutes passed, and another 15, and there was no sign that they were anywhere near their campsite. Stijn was staring straight ahead, like a zombie.
''My parents are sleeping,'' he said. ''My sister is sleeping. My brain is tired. My feet are tired.''
They were bone-tired, all of them, but also adamant on finishing. One boy had asked to be picked up at the halfway mark, and that seemed to make the rest of them more determined. At that halfway mark, the children were given snacks and water, but in exchange, their GPS was taken away, and they had to follow their instincts. But no one complained, since there was no one to complain to.
''I'm going,'' Stijn observed. ''I don't know why I'm going, but I'm going.''
It was nearly 2 a.m. when they stumbled into camp. There was a crackling fire, and boiled sausages tucked into soft rolls. Owls were on the hunt, and their shrieks could be heard in the tree canopy high above.
The campers wolfed down the food, stared into the fire for a few minutes, and stumbled to their tents. When Stijn emerged the next morning, bleary-eyed, at 11 a.m., he considered himself a veteran.
He no longer missed his PlayStation. And he said that someday, when he had children, he wanted them to experience a dropping.
''It shows you, even in very hard times, to keep walking, to keep going,'' he said. ''I have never had to do that before.''
Claire Moses contributed reporting from London.
Image A Dutch wheat field and a farm house at night. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times A version of this article appears in print on
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In Dutch Summer, a Child Can Be Left Behind
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How talking points work
from producer
I'm
a bit behind on the podcasts but I believe you said in the last ~3 episodes
that AOC hates america during the discussion bit about her testimony /
questioning of the DHS chair (or someone related to immigrant detainment) This
is the first time I've ever gotten that vibe that No Agenda is biased or
"trump apologists" and I'd like to know why you said it. AOC from
that clip was indeed a dumbass since she's questioning the guy and has no idea
what to do if he didn't answer with what she was expecting, but how do you draw
a conclusion that she HATES america?
follow up
I was shopping at the time of listening so I did not have
full attention. It sounded like it was a comment you had stated of your own
given the tone seemed to be your angry tone rather than your mocking tone. I
only consume media through reddit top posts and no agenda. This should mean
that i've never heard this quote outside of no agenda
Trump Rotation
University research suggests Trump may be responsible for premature births among Latinas | The College Fix
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:05
A study came out last week which suggests President Trump's policies and rhetoric are responsible for health problems among Latinos, in particular premature births.
According to the Washington Post, researchers from Johns Hopkins, Stony Brook University, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco ''found the risk of premature birth was higher than expected'' among Latinas since Trump's election in 2016.
Interestingly, and somewhat disparagingly, neither the article nor the study make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Not to mention, after a rather lengthy lead-in by the WaPo authors detailing a litany of alleged social and medical-related sins committed by the president following his election, we read this:
''The study's authors ['...] pointed out that their findings show the premature birth increase occurred after Trump's election, but do not prove it was caused by the election or the anti-immigration policies proposed and enforced shortly afterward.''
Nevertheless, lead researcher Alison Gemmill said the study ''follows other studies that suggest a link to Trump.''
''It's not just one piece of evidence,'' Gemmill said. ''I think we're triangulating with all of this evidence that's coming out, and it's all more or less telling the same story.''
From the article:
If anything, the new ['...] study may be underestimating the effect of Trump, said Nancy Krieger, an epidemiologist at Harvard's School of Public Health who was not involved in the research. Last year, she published a similar study on births in New York that found an increase in preterm births among Latina mothers born outside the United States.
''There's a price being paid for all the hateful rhetoric we're hearing now,'' Krieger said. ''It's not a game or just words. The words are meant to induce fear and fear carries a physical toll in our bodies.''
A study of nearly 25,000 births in Texas noted a correlation between anti-immigrant rhetoric during Trump's 2016 campaign and Latina women waiting longer to seek prenatal care and seeking care less often.
Two other studies found a relationship between fear of immigration raids and negative outcomes among pregnant Latina women. In one, University of Michigan researchers studied birth records before and after a 2008 immigration raid at a meat-processing plant in Iowa involving hundreds of Latinos. They found that babies born to Latina mothers in Iowa in the nine months after the raid suffered a greater risk of premature birth and low birth weight.
And, yet another study last September argued pretty much the same thing. (At least in that one the term ''illegal'' is used, albeit to note how ''perception'' of the term is ''dehumanizing,'' etc.)
Ironically, despite Trump's alleged enmity for Latinos, his approval rating among the demographic seems to be doing rather well.
Read the WaPo story.
MORE: Profs: Trump's 'anti-immigrant' rhetoric harms health of Latinos
MORE: Study: 25% of millennials suffer from PTSD due to Trump's election
IMAGE: Shutterstock.com
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OTG
Moniker '' Click Click Click
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 13:43
Click Click Click is a browser event based game developed by Moniker & VPRO.
The visitor of the website clickclickclick.click will find itself on a flat white website with one single green button in the centre of the screen. Confronted with this empty screen the user (called 'the subject') most likely will be triggered to act with his mouse. Then the story starts. Everything, even the most tiny movement that we assume not worthy mentioning gets measured, recorded and valued. A feedback of written observations scroll in the screen, the user gets aware that he has entered an environment where his actions are transparent.
On top of these 'objective' measurements a narrating voice starts to judge the user upon its behavior and draws his conclusions '' boring, exceptional, probably female, oh nooo - yes! Far reaching diagnosis and conclusions. Since all other visitors of clickclickclick.click before him or her had been observed as well, his actions are compared to others'... 'This subject is pretty mediocre'...
Addressing the idea that all of our online behavior is possibly captured and monetized, the VPRO generously commissioned and co-produced this project.
Selected CoverageClickclickclick.click has one trick, and it's great
A website that comments on your internet behavior
Moniker launches creepy browser-based game about online profiling
They've collectively completed 7 million achievements
CreditsProduction
Concept
Co-production
'"
VPRO media labAnnelies ter MeerGeert-Jan BogaertsTon van Gool
Technology
Text Editor
Disney uses apps, 'MagicBands' to track guests: report
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:16
The ''Happiest Place on Earth'' is also one of the most surveilled '-- with Disney honchos using the park's wearable ''MagicBands'' and smartphone apps to reportedly track guests and collect data on not just their buying habits, but also what rides their kids like and who their favorite characters are.
The ''unfettered access'' to customer data has led to a major boom in operating profit, according to Bloomberg, which reports an 18 percent jump last year to $4.5 billion.
Disney has been able to use the info it collects on park guests to study how they operate and find logistic solutions not just in Disneyland, but Disney World as well, Bloomberg says.
The move '-- when done by tech companies such as Facebook '-- has been blasted by many in the past. But Disney hasn't gotten the same treatment.
As a result, it's reportedly investing more money into its theme parks than it did when acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm combined.
The company recently rolled out a new virtual reservation system at Disneyland, which has led to reduced wait times and less overcrowding.
According to Bloomberg, it's MagicBand system brought down transaction times by 30 percent '-- while also boosting park capacity.
The wearable tech keeps track of guests' spending habits, what they are riding in the park, where they are eating and what characters they're stopping to see. It can also serve as a hotel key and electronic meal plan voucher, should the person be staying at a Disney resort.
Company experts analyze the park smartphone apps, as well, to keep tabs on people's ''fast-pass'' selections and what they're buying online, Bloomberg reports.
The data mining is ultimately carried out to ''keep the parks running with extreme efficiency,'' according to the outlet '-- and to find out which television and film properties are the most popular.
''It wasn't always this way,'' writes Bloomberg's Austin Carr. ''Just a decade ago, Disney relied on paper tickets and old-school turnstiles, and, for the most part, didn't know that much more about resort customers than those who came to the park's opening 64 years ago this week. Finally recognizing the growth of social media and mobile phones late last decade, the company embarked on a $1-billion digital transformation of Disney World with the MagicBand, a gizmo that can hold your place in line, make payments and unlock a hotel room door.''
Back in 2013, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger butted heads with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) '-- who recently introduced legislation to protect online ''personal information'' '-- over whether the MagicBand system would be unethical.
Markey, then a congressman, reportedly argued that it would be used to keep tabs on children's whereabouts and their personal interests. Iger said the program was ''entirely opt-in'' and that location data was only collected in aggregate. He blasted Markey's claims as ''ludicrous and utterly ill-informed.''
''Disney's record and commitment to children's safety and security and the protection of their privacy is exemplary,'' Iger told the lawmaker in a letter. ''People around the world trust Disney and its products. We are offended by the ludicrous and utterly ill-informed assertion'...that we would in any way haphazardly or recklessly introduce a program that manipulates children, or wantonly puts their safety at risk.''
Describing the system itself, Iger said: ''MyMagic+ is a completely optional program that was designed with privacy controls from the outset. Disney does not use personal information to market to children under age 13, does not personalize or target advertisements to an individual child, and never shares children's personal information with any third party for their marketing purposes. Additionally, parents have full control over their child's participation in MyMagic+. We have transparent privacy practices, guests can control and limit the amount of information they provide to us '-- and how their information is used.''
Tech experts believe other big name companies would like to mimic the Disney data mining system, but have been unable to do so '-- partially because they don't have amusement parks or a giant talking mouse catering to kids.
''It's designed to anticipate your desires,'' wrote Cliff Kuang in a 2015 article for Wired. ''Which makes it exactly the type of thing Apple, Facebook, and Google are trying to build. Except Disney World isn't just an app or a phone '-- it's both, wrapped in an idealized vision of life that's as safely self-contained as a snow globe.''
eScooters
Why the dockless scooter industry is going after a repossessor and a bike shop owner - The Verge
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:17
The multibillion-dollar dockless scooter industry is going after a repossessor and a bike shop owner who have 10,000 scooters languishing in a tow yard
There are more electric scooters than people in Pacific Beach, a crowded neighborhood in San Diego known for its bars, surf, attractive college students, and increasingly unaffordable rent. Scooters from Lime, Bird, Lyft, Uber, and Razor are parked along the main path. People can even rent tiny electric bikes from a company called Wheels.
John Heinkel, a professional repo man with a full head of graying hair and a small and scrappy build, hoists a Lime scooter on its back wheel, setting off the alarm underneath the scooter's brake. Heinkel muffles the annoying sound with his hand.
''You want to throw a couple?'' he offers at one point, gesturing toward the dumpster, halfway jokingly.
Dan Borelli, his business partner, says that towing scooters is no different than writing parking tickets. ''We aren't just grabbing scooters off the street and throwing them in a yard,'' Borelli insists. ''We write a parking ticket for every single one we have.''
They say that they have impounded thousands of dockless e-scooters around San Diego
Together, the two men run an operation called ScootScoop. They say that they have impounded thousands of dockless e-scooters around San Diego on behalf of business owners and landlords who are fed up with the deluge of dockless two-wheelers.
ScootScoop is a simple, low-budget concept, making use of a tow yard and flatbed truck that Heinkel already owns. Their advertising is word-of-mouth. They have no employees and no outside funding. But they seem to pose an existential threat to the multibillion-dollar scooter industry.
First came the lawsuits. Heinkel and Borelli are accused in a lawsuit filed in California Superior Court in late March of improperly impounding Bird's scooters and then ransoming them back to the $2 billion company. Lime filed a nearly identical suit soon after.
The same companies that had raised hundreds of millions of dollars working around any local permits or regulations are now demanding protections under the California Vehicle Code, asking a judge to intervene and save their dockless scooters from ScootScoop. Depositions are scheduled to take place at the end of July.
''The people of San Diego are being bamboozled by a local tow company scheme,'' Bird's press team says in an emailed statement. ''Scooter Removal aka ScootScoop, orchestrated by Talon Auto Adjusters,'' the name of Heinkel's repossession business, ''is unlawfully impounding micro-mobility devices and demanding a ransom for their return.''
Ransom is a word ''that we don't really particularly like,'' Borelli told me. ''It's a fake bully word that's been made up to make our character look worse.''
''It's a fake bully word that's been made up to make our character look worse.''
Then came the chargers, or the freelance contractors who work in the cutthroat industry of charging scooters with low batteries. (Lime calls its contractors ''juicers, while Bird calls them ''hunters''). Heinkel and Borelli and one of their ScootScoop clients tell me that they've recently caught juicers breaking into a ScootScoop impound storage unit, going after the Lime scooters specifically. The juicers allegedly became violent when confronted. (''This is a disturbing report and such aggressive behavior is never tolerated on the Lime platform,'' Lime said in a statement.)
But today, on this sunny afternoon in April, with scooters zipping by everywhere, it's hard to imagine how a device that was supposed to be fun and healthy took such a dark turn.
''Their app specifically says you can ride it 'anywhere' and leave it 'anywhere,''' Borelli says as he pushes a Bird scooter through the Pacific Beach neighborhood. If he sounds slightly bitter, it's only because he owns a bike shop nearby and believes that dockless scooter companies are trying to steal his customers.
Nobody cares or tries to stop the men as they push the scooters along. There are too many scooters in circulation for anyone to miss these two. In fact, a few minutes later, a construction worker cheers Heinkel and Borelli on. ''Those things are annoying!'' he yells. ''They started showing up at my house. I live in the suburbs, I was like...'' He shakes his head disapprovingly.
Borelli says the experience is universal. ''Everybody says, 'Where did they come from?'''
Last April, Heinkel and Borelli met me on the boardwalk in matching blue collared shirts, with a crossed-out scooter embroidered on the left breast pocket, to demonstrate what it means to be a scooter-tower. They have dreams of expanding, perhaps by going to another city or working with investors. But for now, it's just the two of them in San Diego, working around 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They have small tow yards around town and a larger lot in the suburbs that is guarded by security cameras, dogs, and razor wire. They also rolled out an app that clients can use to order a tow.
Before scooters consumed his life, Heinkel, 55, specialized in hunting down cars and other valuables south of the border. Among the many items he has retrieved on behalf of banks and other clients over his 25-year career: a celebrity's yacht from Cabo San Lucas, a Hertz rental car that a Russian tourist left in Cancun, and a Ferrari that a con artist abandoned in Mexico City. He characterizes his repo work as a relatively low-risk job because he has the backing of the court system.
''I was good at the job of taking stuff from people in the middle of the night or during the day.''
He started out as a young man looking for work after a stint in the Marines. ''I discovered that I was not really good at college,'' Heinkel says. ''I was good at the job of taking stuff from people in the middle of the night or during the day. I can speak, I can think. I realized that it comes down to the ability to de-escalate the problem. Because nobody's happy when you're taking their stuff.''
Borelli, 43, has 29 percent ownership of a bike rental shop in the neighborhood, just off the boardwalk. The first time he saw dockless e-scooters, around February or March of last year, they were brazenly left outside his store.
Bird, Lime, and their supporters believe that dockless electric scooters can help reduce car dependency. But to Borelli, it seemed that the scooter industry was really trying to replace bicycles. He threw the offending scooters in the dumpster, but they were quickly replaced by more scooters.
''They're trying to take away my customers on a daily basis,'' he tells me.
The two men hit it off last year after Heinkel took his daughter for a bike ride in the neighborhood. He needed to put air in her tires and walked into Borelli's shop. They eventually got to talking about the scooters that seemed to be taking over the boardwalk. Heinkel noted it wasn't really safe for him to let his two-year-old ride a bike there anymore.
Borelli pointed out to Heinkel that he already owned a flatbed truck and a tow lot. The next step was obvious. Their first client was Borelli's frustrated landlord. From there, more business followed.
''We did not seek anybody out, those property owners came to us,'' Heinkel says.
For the last 54 years, Jim Bostian has managed day-to-day operations at the Crystal Pier Hotel, a hotel property of small cottages built on top of a pier in Pacific Beach. The pier is smack dab in the middle of an especially touristy strip and has a driveway for hotel guests that feeds into the boardwalk.
In the midst of the scooter explosion, Bostian noticed that people were littering the hotel driveway with scooters, blocking guests from driving in and out. He's tried asking riders to move the scooters elsewhere. About half have agreed. The other half threw f-bombs.
Bostian says that he has nothing against scooters. He insists that he likes the idea of emissions-free transportation. But, like others in town, he's found that dockless scooters have a disturbing ability to reflect the ugliness in people.
''They don't care. I mean, they just don't care where they leave them.''
''It's the people,'' he says. ''They don't care. I mean, they just don't care where they leave them.''
Not far away, a restaurant owner in Mission Beach tells me that she hired ScootScoop after riders started leaving scooters in front of a wheelchair lift that she built for her disabled customers, blocking access. And a federal lawsuit that a disability rights group filed against Bird, Lime, Razor, and the City of San Diego in January says that scooters are being left in front of wheelchair ramps, curbs, and crosswalks. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say the scooters are a menace.
''I've almost been knocked over several times,'' Alex Montoya, a San Diego-based motivational speaker who wears three prosthetic limbs, tells me. Montoya is the lead plaintiff in the disability lawsuit. ''We're not trying to eliminate the scooters. We're trying to make sure people ride them responsibly.''
On July 1st, the City of San Diego implemented new regulations to address the scooter complaints. The regulations will require scooter companies to obtain insurance policies, free the city from all legal liability, cap speeds on the boardwalk, and obtain permits for every scooter in circulation. It's still too early to tell whether the new regulations will make a difference.
''We are aware that people are still riding on sidewalks, we are aware that people are colliding into people and then taking off,'' San Diego Police Department Lt. Shawn Takeuchi says.
Bostian, the hotel operator, called ScootScoop last year after reading an article about them in a local newspaper. He tried contacting the scooter companies first, but says they never did anything about the scooters blocking his driveway. Since then, he's been happy with ScootScoop, and even let them keep some of the impounded scooters in a storage unit on his property.
He remembers they looked like they had been beaten up
But information about where the scooters are stored seems to have made it to the juicers '--the freelancers paid a small fee to find scooters with low batteries, charge them overnight, and then drop them back off in the streets. Bostian has noticed that some Limes have gone missing from storage, and he believes that juicers have been cutting the brake cables on scooters to free them from impound in the middle of the night.
About a month ago, Bostian says that he caught a juicer red-handed, trying to walk off with a scooter that had already been impounded. Bostian ordered him off his property. They got into an argument, and then the juicer pushed him while he was walking away.
A few weeks later, on June 22nd, Bostian came to work at 5:15 in the morning. Heinkel and Borelli were there, and they told him the police were on the way. He remembers they looked like they had been beaten up.
When Heinkel and Borelli lead me on a scooter-towing tour, it takes about ten minutes to find a dozen or so scooters parked on a property belonging to a hotel owner they work with. They write ''tickets'' in their app, pick up the scooters, and bring them to their nearby tow closet. It's around noon, but dozens of scooters are already impounded, neatly organized by brand. Their larger lot in the suburbs, the one guarded with razor wire and dogs, holds the thousands of leftover scooters that Bird and Lime are refusing to pick up, on the basis that ScootScoop is demanding ''excessive fees.''
Heinkel counters the charge is far lower than what tow companies typically ask for when they are towing cars. ScootScoop charges the scooter companies $30 for pick-up and an additional $2 for each day that the scooter is in storage, capping the daily fees off after a month.
Initially, Bird agreed to play along, after ScootScoop had impounded 1,800 Bird scooters from July through November of 2018. When Bird finally showed up to collect them, it wasn't a contentious meeting. In fact, company representatives handed over a $40,000 check to cover the towing fees. Then they all took friendly pictures together.
Initially, Bird agreed to play along, after ScootScoop had impounded 1,800 Bird scooters
Afterward, Bird sent ScootScoop an invitation to invoice through Bird Pays, the app that the company uses to pay its contractors. In their lawsuit, Bird admits that it initially paid the $40,000 fee because the company was confused about its rights.
In hindsight, ''it looked like they thought we were going to go away, and we weren't going to do this anymore, so they tried to play nice guy with us,'' Borelli says. He submitted invoices, as instructed, but Bird never paid them again. So ScootScoop stopped releasing its scooters. Lime also discussed a possible settlement with ScootScoop, Borelli says, but never followed through.
In its complaint, Bird claims they have learned that ScootScoop is actually grabbing scooters from public sidewalks and other city property where they aren't authorized to do business. (Heinkel and Borelli dispute this.)
''Defendants' improper impoundment scheme has caused'--and continues to cause'--Bird harm,'' Bird says in its complaint. ''Bird has suffered'--and continues to suffer'--lost business, not to mention reputational harm, from having fewer scooters in circulation.''
Bird is demanding that ScootScoop stop doing business, release all Bird scooters, and pay Bird back four times the amount of the fees that they are attempting to bill Bird for the scooters. The company is also demanding punitive damages and ''any profits made by Defendants'' in the course of their entire scooter-towing career.
Borelli says that the towing has hardly made a dent in the flow of scooters in town. ''They have more devices out there than anybody possibly could think.'' (The City of San Diego does not have an official count of how many scooters are out in the wild because they are still reviewing permitting applications.)
As we walk toward the Pacific Beach boardwalk, a perfectly tan 20-something who looks like he is on his way to the gym passes by. Heinkel says the man works for Wheels and flags him down, to confirm that ScootScoop gets along with the young contractors who work for big scooter. ''Keeping it clean,'' the Wheels worker says of the scooter towers.
But not all of their interactions are so friendly.
he refused to back down and, as a result, was run over by the scooter
On June 22nd, hours before hotel operator Jim Bostian saw into the ScootScoop guys, Heinkel was at the Crystal Pier property in the middle of the night to pick up an order of shipping containers to use as security at his impound lots. He saw that two Lime juicers were already there. They had broken into his storage unit and were holding scooters, he says. Heinkel confronted them, trying to grab the scooters back. He says that one of the workers, a man who towered over Heinkel, punched him a few times. Then he got on the scooter and started riding it toward Heinkel, who says he refused to back down and, as a result, was run over by the scooter. Borelli, who showed up shortly after the fight had started, says he got sideswiped. In a video that Heinkel captured partially of the fight, a man's voice is heard saying that he works for Lime, and a Lime scooter is clearly visible in the video.
''We are looking into the incident and will ensure this individual is removed from our platform, and we stand ready to support however we can,'' a Lime spokesperson said in a statement.
(Lt. Takeuchi with the San Diego Police Department confirms that Heinkel filed a police report describing a fight over stolen scooters, but the report does not name a specific scooter brand.)
''All over something that is $4.50 each,'' Heinkel says.
Heinkel sounds confident that the new shipping containers will keep the juicers away for good. And neither he nor Borelli sound very worried about the lawsuit. They've responded to Bird's lawsuit with a counter-complaint, and their attorney tells me that their defense will focus on private property rights because there is some ambiguity over whether scooters are considered vehicles under the California Vehicle Code.
When I call them in July, Heinkel and Borelli say that they recently celebrated impounding their 10,360th scooter with some donuts and large coffees from 7/11. Then they got back to work.
''If you take all the BS that they've thrown out, and you take our BS, and you take it down, it's a very simple concept,'' Heinkel says. ''They have taken their stuff and placed it on someone else's property without permission.''
''Now that's them, and here's us. We're two guys who went to the property owners and got permission with that property owner to remove that stuff off their property. That's all it is.''
Wiener
Anthony Weiner moves back in with Huma Abedin | Daily Mail Online
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:55
Anthony Weiner has moved back in with Huma Abedin, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
The 54-year-old was seen rolling boxes and designer garment bags into the Hillary Clinton aide's home over the weekend. Weiner never lived in the lower Manhattan apartment where Huma moved with their seven-year-old son Jordan soon after the disgraced politician went to prison.
Weiner didn't have any help as he used a trolley to cart in his belongings, wearing a white tank top, shorts and sneakers as he made several trips inside the building.
Abedin had filed for divorce the day Weiner entered into a guilty plea for sexting a 15-year-old girl in May 2017, which DailyMail.com exposed a year earlier, but withdrew her request in January, deciding to settle privately.
It's not clear where Weiner had been staying since leaving a Bronx halfway house in May after spending 21 months in custody for the illicit contact with the minor.
Anthony Weiner has moved back in with Huma Abedin, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal
Abedin had filed for divorce the day Weiner entered into a guilty plea for sexting a 15-year-old girl in May 2017, which DailyMail.com exposed, but withdrew her request in January, deciding to settle privately. Pictured: The two in 2015
The 54-year-old was seen rolling boxes and garment bags into the Hillary Clinton aide's home over the weekend in New York City. Huma moved to this apartment with their son Jordan soon after Weiner left to serve his prison sentence
Weiner didn't have any help as he used a trolley to cart in his belongings, wearing a white tank top, shorts and sneakers as he made several trips inside the luxury building
It's not clear where Weiner had been staying since leaving a Bronx halfway house in May after spending 21 months in custody for the illicit contact with the minor
The move comes weeks after Weiner was seen lunching with a young brunette at a Wall Street brunch spot.
The disgraced politician was released from prison in February and went straight to living in a halfway house in the Bronx.
Leaving the halfway house in May, he said he hoped to get back to my family and make up for some lost time.'
'I hope to be able to live a life of integrity and service, and I'm glad this chapter of my life is behind me,' he said.
Weiner must be registered as a level one sex offender for the next 20 years.
Because of his low-level designation, Weiner's information won't show up in the state's online sex offender registry but will be available via a toll-free telephone number.
Since being released, Weiner has been touting a book deal and asking for investors for a marijuana business.
Within days of being released from prison, he was spotted at a coffee shop in Union Square trying to win business.
Weiner didn't have any help as he used a trolley to cart in his belongings, wearing a white tank top, shorts and sneakers as he made several trips inside the building
The move comes weeks after Weiner was seen lunching with a young brunette at a Wall Street brunch spot
He must be registered as a level one sex offender for the next 20 years
Since being released, Weiner has been touting a book deal and asking for investors for a marijuana business
Weiner wore a sleeveless white tank to keep cool as he rolled his belongings into Huma's home
A source told DailyMail.com of the meeting: 'Weiner was advising the other man on how to approach investors and said, ''Tell them you have this great venture and then be like, I know the perfect guy''.
'Weiner appeared to be referring to himself and explaining how to get other money on board but conceal his involvement.'
He told one potential investor that the 'sexual stuff shouldn't matter'.
The 'stuff' he referred to were explicit text messages he exchanged with a 15-year-old girl while he was married in September 2016.
Among them was one text which read: 'I would bust that tight p***y so hard you would leak and limp for a week.'
He originally made contact with the girl on Twitter.
Weiner was released from jail in February after he was sentenced to 21 months in November 2017 for sexting a 15-year-old girl. Shown are some of the shirtless selfies he sent her
The 15-year-old girl shared her story with DailyMail.com in 2016
Since being released from prison in February, he has spent his days trying to get a book deal.
Sources told The New York Post last month that there was zero interest in it from publishers.
The sexting scandal was revealed during the fever pitch of the 2016 presidential elections and was the reason James Comey, the former FBI director, reopened the case into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server days before the polls opened.
While investigating Weiner's sexts, law enforcement agents seized computers from his home including his wife's.
It revealed that she had been using the laptop to work on behalf of Clinton while she was Secretary of State.
Abedin has said nothing since the scandal broke.
In May 2017, she filed for divorce but the pair withdrew it in January this year.
Clinton Body Count
FBI Rocked By Public Suicide of TOP FBI Agent Who Investigated Clinton Foundation '' True Pundit
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:57
FBI agents are mourning the death of one of the Bureau's top financial crimes supervisors who reportedly shot and killed himself on a crowded nite-club dance floor, according to top FBI insiders.
Salvatore ''Sal'' Cincinelli, a former Wall Street broker who joined the FBI in 2010, died last week during a night out after an FBI training session, sources said.
Cincinelli was one a supervisory special agent who spearheaded many of the FBI's high-profile and complex Wall Street investigations, including probing the finances of the Clinton Foundation. After leaving his Wall Street career, Cincinelli was first assigned to the New York field office (SDNY) and later promoted to HQ in Washington, DC. He was a native New Yorker as well.
''Very very bright guy,'' one FBI insider said. ''Such a young guy, it really gets you in the gut. He put in the hours too, was always working hard.''
Cincinelli was 41.
Cincinelli was reportedly out partying with FBI colleagues at the Container Bar, a trendy watering hole in Austin, TX. The group had been drinking and dancing, according to sources. Later in the evening Cincinelli reportedly turned the gun on himself on a crowded dance floor.
Bar owner Bridget Dunlap did not respond to phone calls seeking details on the incident.
FBI agents on site and police instructed witnesses to delete any video and photographs of the event and cleared out the bar, according to reports. Likewise, FBI officials instructed Austin Police to not release any details of the death to the media, sources confirmed. Witnesses at the nite club were also told to ''stay offline'' and ''keep quiet'' about the shooting, sources said.
The FBI has not commented on Cincinelli's death.
According to his resume, Cincinelli was a Supervisory Special Agent in the FBI's Complex Financial Crimes Unit. He managed the FBI's financial crimes program for the Northeast region, and wwas a detailee from the FBI to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Before working at FBI Headquarters, SSA Cincinelli led financial crime investigations in the FBI's flagship New York Field Office. SSA Cincinelli conducted investigations involving market manipulation, corporate & accounting fraud, Ponzi schemes, money laundering, insider trading, and antitrust violations, among others. SSA Cincinelli worked as a fixed-income trader prior to joining the FBI, and held an MBA in Quantitative Finance from NYU's Stern School of Business.
This story is developing.
A previous news story in the Wall Street Journal highlighted Cincinelli soon after he joined the FBI:
Cincinelli walked away from a career as a credit trader with an MBA in quantitative finance to join the FBI. He said that for an investigation he's working on, he recently interviewed a person on Wall Street who specializes in collateralized debt obligations, bonds that are created from collections of corporate debt and sold to investors in slices.
He said the conversation lasted an hour and at the end of it the other agent who had accompanied him turned to Cincinelli and said, ''I don't even know how I would ask those questions.''
But making the switch from Wall Street, where seven-figure salaries are common, to much lower-paying government work isn't always easy.
''Some of my friends said, 'Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?''' said Cincinelli, whose profile on LinkedIn shows he has held positions at Bank of America and Global FX.
Cincinelli declined to discuss his prior work and said his wife initially was furious with his decision to join the FBI. She was worried for her husband's safety and unhappy about the lengthy FBI training programs.
'-- Tomas Paine
Birds aren't real
HOW? '' Birds Aren't Real
Sun, 21 Jul 2019 20:03
The only way to properly explain, is with words.
Buckle up.
It is imperative that we discuss the methods that the government used to extinguish over 12 billion birds between 1959 and 1971. If we are to make disciples of the birds aren't real movement, we must equip each and every person with the knowledge of what truly happened in this saga of insanity and government corruption. Here are the facts and eyewitness accounts of various key events that occurred within our nation that completely destroyed every man woman and child bird in existence.
Allen Welsh Dulles: you may not be familiar with this disgraceful human, but he was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961. Upon the government writing the plan to slowly kill off the birds, it was his responsibility to make it a reality. He was given the task of reallocating 65 Billion dollars of public health funds towards the forced extinction. On May 6th, 1955 he met with an unidentified man from the Boeing Airplane Company, and ordered 120 B-52 bombers. Dulles knew that if his government was to go undetected, he had to keep these aircraft out of sight from the American public. He was under strict orders not to leave a trace of his actions, so he devised a plan to construct the aircraft in Nevada's Area 51. This way, the citizens of Seattle Washington (where Boeing was headquartered) wouldn't be able to claim that the bombers had been built nearby (if the government was exposed).
23 men from within the Boeing Engineering department travelled to Area 51 in the back of an old school bus that they purchased from a salvage yard in Mukilteo Washington. They were seen by a few individuals bringing couches and rugs into the bus, and were also heard discussing and I quote,'' really cool playlists for the road trip.''
Clearly, the Boeing Engineers didn't get the memo from Dulles about remaining undetected, and actually painted ''Area 51 or bust'' on both sides of the bus. Whenever they would stop for gas, they would set up a makeshift campsite in the parking lot and sing songs with titles such as ''I left my Honey for Area 51,'' and,'' Let's Kill all the Birds.'' They attracted a lot of attention, and the locals of a town in Idaho claimed that the men would reveal intimate details of what they were doing. Clearly, they were complete idiots; but their idiocy is one of the hardest pieces of evidence on how the government killed the birds. While 22 of the men made it to Nevada, one man did not. Neil Ford was the only engineer that lived to tell the story, as he was left in a Waffle House bathroom because the others claimed,'' he had to pee too many times, and was ruining the vibe of the road trip.''
Neil spoke with one of the founding members of the Birds Aren't Real movement shortly before his death in 1994. He spoke about the way in which Dulles searched for the engineers who didn't have families. That way, they would be able to disappear from the map when the project was complete, and nobody would notice. This disturbing reality is a far cry from the way in which many people view the 1950s, and proves that our government has been ruthless in its effort to rid our nation of its peace and prosperity.
Upon making it to Area 51, the 22 remaining engineers were tasked with designing a new version of the B-52, the B-52B. The B stands for Bird or Barack, and it was to be a brand-new model of the B-52 that had 450-gallon water tanks in the place of the bomb compartments. The water tanks were hard to design, and one of the engineers almost gave up, but Dulles hit him over the head with a 40-pound wrench to try and ''knock some sense into him.'' This unintentionally put the man into a coma, to which he never awoke. Scared out of their minds, the remaining 21 engineers vowed to finish designing the airplane so they could leave Area 51 for good. This was to be a faulty dream however, as none of the men were ever seen again. We only know this information because 12 pallets of classified documents were stolen from a warehouse by one of our Birds Aren't Real patriots- but we'll get to that later in the next installment (December 2018.)
Once the water tanks were fitted into each bomber, a complex system of radar and tracking technology was installed to the nose of the aircraft. This technology was extremely advanced for its time, and was used by the crew to track large flocks of birds from distances of 200 miles away. Once the radar was fitted, 5 coats of jet black matte paint was sprayed onto every surface of the plane. This was done to camouflage the aircraft against the night sky, so that it could go undetected from the ground. Not only was paint used to hide the bombers, but each external strobe, beacon, and landing light was removed. Not a single light emitted from the plane, and the Pratt & Whitney JT3D engines were fitted with noise reduction pads that enabled the aircraft to fly completely silent from altitudes of 3,000 ft. or higher.
It took 2 years to build the 120 bombers, and once they were finished, the Boeing Engineers were told that they were free to go home. However, they were intercepted 30 minutes into their trip back to Washington, and were put in the back of an armored troop transport vehicle. The men were sent to the front line in Vietnam, which Dulles hoped would seal their fate. Each of the engineers actually survived for 3 weeks in intense combat, and were kidnapped by the Viet Cong only after they ran out of ammunition. The men were not heard from again.
Now you may be wondering, how were the birds actually killed? What method was used to accomplish this act of mass murder? Good question. The water tanks in the bombers were filled with a specially formulated bird poison, that once consumed, would give the bird a virus that could be passed onto other birds. The poison was sprayed from an altitude of 8,000 feet, and would completely dissolve before it hit the ground. Which meant that only birds would be affected by its terror, and once a single drop of the poison struck the birds feathers, the virus would take hold through the fibers and make its way into the bloodstream. The virus would then affect the bone structure in such a way that total decomposition of the birds would take place within 24 hours.
On June 14th, 1959, the CIA secretly began ''Water the Country.'' Within the next 6 years, 72% of the bird population was wiped out. During this nightmare event, the first few bird prototypes were released by the hundred thousand. The term 'drone' was not used at this time, and instead they were referred to as Robot Birds. In a stolen transcript from an ex-CIA deputy, she says,'' yeah, the higher ups were so annoyed that birds had been dropping fecal matter on their car windows that they vowed to wipe out every single flying feathered creature in North America.''
As we learned in the previous chapter, this was just one of the reasons that the government came up with to eliminate the birds. Let it be known, the CIA originally were the only ones responsible for this atrocity, and the President had no idea that this was taking place. The CIA did not intend for anyone but select departments to find out what was going on, even the pilots of the bombers were unaware what they were doing. The Chief Commanding Officer of Water the Country told them that they were,'' watering the grass of the entire country'' To this day, it is highly unlikely that the pilots know that they assisted in the largest mass murder in world history. If any of the original bomber pilots of operation Water the Country are reading this, here me closely. We do not blame you for the sins of your superiors. While you did kill billions of helpless birds, you did not know what you were doing. You do not have to remain in hiding, join the movement and together we can fight the government.
As I said a few paragraphs ago, the President was unaware what was going on until October 3rd, 1963; when a top CIA official was overheard speaking about the operation over a tapped phone. John F. Kennedy was the President at this time, and had tapped the phone of Alvin B. Cleaver (Internal Communications Director for the CIA). Kennedy believed that Cleaver was stealing his ham sandwich from the White House Kitchen, and vowed to catch him speaking about it over the phone. Instead, he heard a highly sensitive conversation that Cleaver was having with Dulles. In it, Cleaver said,'' yeah Allen. I've stolen John's lunch again haha, he doesn't even know. I'm going to keep stealing it until he launches a full investigation. Then I'm going to plant a hidden camera and catch his reaction as a dump all the stolen sandwiches on his desk at one time. I'm going to call the new show 'You've Been Cleavered.''
Dulles responded, ''Haha Alvin, that's going to be so funny. We'll have to play that clip at the White House Correspondents dinner. By the way, how's the bird slaughter going? How many birds have we killed so far?''
''We've killed about 1.1 Billion so far, and the best thing is, the Robot Birds we've released in their place have done such a good job that nobody even suspects a thing.''
Kennedy heard this conversation over the tapped phone and immediately called both into the Oval Office; he demanded to know what they were discussing. They confessed what was taking place in the American sky late at night and he was appalled. He told them to stop the operation at once or he would fire them. They both explained to Kennedy why the birds needed to be exterminated, and asked him if they could show Kennedy a prototype of one of their birds before he made any decisions on whether to end Operation Water the Country.
On October 25th, 1963 Kennedy was shown a prototype of the Turkey X500- a robot that specialized in killing larger birds like eagles and falcons. The robot displayed its surveillance skills, as well as its ability to find and track escaped criminals (as we learned from chapter 1, this was one of the things that drove Eisenhower to approve the project.) Kennedy was impressed with what he was shown, but continued to demand the immediate shutdown of the operation; and less than a month later he was dead. Now I'm not saying that these events are correlated, but I am. JFK was murdered by the CIA because he was against the mass murder of every feathered flying creature in the United States. He was to be the first and only President to stand against the murder of the birds; from Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump, every President we've had since has turned a blind eye to the atrocities that began in 1959. After Kennedy was killed, the CIA started rigging elections. They would only allow candidates who were anti-bird and pro citizen surveillance to win the Presidency.
By now you must be shaking with fear. The thought of your government doing these things is too much for you to handle, can it really be true? Could the government have killed billions of birds and replaced them with robots? Yes, they did, but don't feel alone. At any point during the reading of this book, you are free to email our counseling department and we will walk you through the steps to mentally overcome this nightmare. I personally had to deal with this reality on my own, decades ago. Now I'm giving you a service that I wish had been available to me at the time of my discovery. If you're currently experiencing episodes of excessive perspiration and muscle spasms because of what you've read, do not read Chapter 3 yet. If the first few chapters shocked you, chapter 3 will bring you to your knees. Buckle up, the nightmare is just beginning.
CHAPTER 2
anonymous leader:
It was a sunny, warm day in September 2003, and I had just woken up for my first day of 3rd grade. My mother was calling my name through the wooden door that led to my bedroom as she picked up my toys off the hallway floor; and was putting on my shorts very quickly as I was about to miss the bus. I hastily ate a small bowl of cereal and sprinted out the garage; ducking under the door as it groaned upwards. Running at full speed, I reached the bus stop only to see it driving down the street leaving behind a trail of toxic diesel fumes. I sat down on the ground, panting for air; thinking of what my mother was going to think. I'd missed the bus. I couldn't believe it- and on my first day! What a nightmare.
While sitting down on the warm grass, trying to think of an excuse, I noticed a medium sized black bird sitting atop the mailbox across the street. As the sound of my bus faded into the white noise of my quant neighborhood, I noticed that the bird was staring directly at me. I stared at it for a few seconds and then lost interest; I still had to think of what I was going to tell my mother. Then something happened: the bird perked up and flew directly onto the patch of grass in front of my feet. It stared up at me and I noticed that it was making a very quiet hum, like an old computer fan. I arched my back to get a better look, and fully expected it to fly away. Instead, it came closer. Very slowly, I extended my arm, hoping that it would know to jump into my hand.
It stared at me so intently and I was shocked at how still it was being. How could a living creature be so incredibly motionless? It wasn't even breathing it seemed. Then all of a sudden, it took one jump and landed into my hand. My heart rate increased as I sat on the grass with a decently large black bird perched in my palm. At this point, I could hear the gentle mechanical hum even clearer now, and looked closely at its back, noticing that there was writing on it. I couldn't read very well at the time, and the numbers were very small; but regardless, it was there. As I sat pondering what kind of creature was in my possession, it opened its mouth and did something that I will never forget; it spit out a small bag. The bag was no bigger than a box of matches and was tied at the top with a rubber band.
Immediately after completing this action, it lifted its head and flew out of my hand and into a nearby tree, leaving me with the small bag. Even at my young age, I wondered why the bag was as dry as a bone. Wasn't something that was regurgitated out of a living creature be slick and wet? I pondered this as a stood up and slowly walked home- holding the bag close to my face so I could see what was inside. When I reached home, I noticed that my mother was gone. I sat down at the kitchen table and opened the bag, dumping a white powdery substance on the table surface. I was thoroughly confused; and convinced that I was in some sort of dream, I hit myself on the head with a plate, to try and wake myself up. The plate shattered over my head, and the remains fell over the table and floor below.
I realized that this was not a dream by any means and went to take a shower- washing the shards of glass out of my hair and putting a band-aid on my cut, bruised head. When I had almost finished, I heard my mother enter the house. She walked into the kitchen and shrieked so loudly that it sent our family dog into cardiac arrest. As our dog lay on the ground motionless, I walked out of the bathroom and began to explain what had happened. I tried to explain that I missed the bus and that a bird had given me the substance that was currently spilled onto the kitchen table. Then, thinking I was in a dream, had smashed a plate over my head. She looked closely at the substance and screamed even louder than before and began accusing me of doing drugs. I didn't know what she was talking about and started crying.
My mother pushed me into the back of the family van and drove me to a rehabilitation center about 4 miles from our house. Upon learning that you weren't allowed to send a 3rd grader to rehab, she brought me back into the van and we sat in the parking lot. She stared dead ahead and began to quietly ask where I had acquired the bag (which turned out to be cocaine.) I explained to her that a bird gave it to me, and this ended up just making her think I was on drugs in that exact moment. She told me that I was not allowed to go to school anymore, thus homeschooling me. To this day, I look at this moment as the definitive event that totally changed the course of my life.
Ever since, I have dedicated my life to finding out what kind of creature gave me that bag of drugs and find out why. I would later learn from others within the Birds Aren't Real movement that the bird was trying to get me hooked on drugs; by doing so, I would be arrested and labeled a 'menace to society.' This method is a form of population control that the government still uses today, as no one who's addicted to drugs directly attributes that to their own folly. Instead- when they think back to the first event that introduced them to narcotics, its most often a bird that is to blame.
During the initial years following my abdication from young, innocent child to exposed, maturing teenager, I focused my research not on how- but what. What was that black bird robot that gave me the bag of drugs? What was its purpose? At first, I tried to capture one for my own, so I could examine it and discover what I had truly dealt with all those years ago. I spent years of my life from 2009-2012 asking others about their experience with birds, trying to find something that would fuel my belief that there were birds flying around that weren't birds at all. I didn't uncover anything of value, that is until November 2012.
It was a cold cloudy day when I heard a knock on the door of my house; I opened to find a tall man wearing a black turtleneck and tan trench coat. He asked if he could come inside, as it was very important. Normally not inclined to let a complete stranger enter my home, I allowed it. As my mother was at work- I thought it best to hear what was so urgent, as I believed that something was extremely wrong- given the tone of his voice. He walked into my living room and reached his long arms up to lower the blinds that looked out over my quiet neighborhood- as he did so my heart began to race.
He sat down on the edge of our coffee table and asked me if I could have a seat. He took off his hat and began to question why I had been inquiring about the legitimacy of birds. Somehow, he had heard that I was the local ''weirdo'' who spent all his time asking around about whether anyone else had encountered a robot bird. I explained to him what happened to me years ago in 2003, and he didn't act surprised. When I finished, he stood up and said- ''peter,, you are not crazy. You're the sanest person in this entire town. That bird you encountered was in fact a drone. Not only was that bird a drone, but every other bird you see perched on a limb, flying around, waddling for a drink at the local pond- is also a drone.''
As my eyes widened and my heart beat sped up, he explained that he was a former security guard at a warehouse in the outskirts of Washington D.C. In this warehouse was kept a pallet of information that accidentally toppled over one morning when a forklift hit it from the upper shelf of one of the more 'off limits' areas. While he began scooping up the scattered files, he couldn't help but read some of the information and noticed that there was something extremely suspicious about birds.
He took quick photos of random documents, for later analysis- and explained to me that there was a massive, government wide deception that had been perpetuated on the American people; that birds in fact were drones. Birds Aren't Real. They haven't been for decades, and in 2001, the last real bird died- in a closed ceremony on an island off the coast of Virginia.
To be continued...
Ebola
DR Congo health minister resigns after president moves mandate for Ebola outbreak to team of experts | Euronews
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 16:01
This story is being updated as events unfold.The health minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo offered his resignation after the President of the country decided to move the mandate for the Ebola response directly under his supervision.
Health Minister Dr Oly Illunga posted his resignation letter to Twitter, denouncing the DR Congo president's decision stating that it would "risk creating harmful confusion and cacophony".
DRC President F(C)lix Tshisekedi's office announced on Saturday that it would place the Ebola response under a committee directly under its supervision citing the World Health Organisation's declaration last week that the Ebola outbreak constituted a "public health emergency of international concern".
The president transferred responsibility for the response to a group of experts to ensure a coordinated response to the outbreak.
"It is essential that the government demonstrate leadership and coherence in strategic dialogue with partners and options related to the response," Dr Ilunga wrote in his resignation letter, which he posted on Twitter.
Vaccines
Who should get the HPV vaccine? The recommendations keep changing. - Vox
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 19:45
When the HPV vaccine first came on the market in 2006, the CDC recommended it for a relatively narrow slice of the population: just girls and young women, ages 11 to 26.
Over the years, though, that recommendation has broadened dramatically, and for good reason. There's more and more evidence that the shot protects against the human papillomavirus, and prevents cervical, anal, and other cancers.
Most recently, in June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the group that helps set the vaccine guidelines in America) voted to change its recommendation again. They said the vaccine should be given to all boys and young men up to age 26 (extending the age range from 21). They also decided men and women as old as 45 now should now talk to their doctors about the vaccine (though stopped short of endorsing it outright for all older adults).
That last decision '-- to suggest people as old as 45 now consider the vaccine '-- was controversial. There's currently a global shortage of HPV shots and some worried that expanding the definition of who should get the shot was not a good use of limited supplies. Others worried it may obscure the message that it's most effective in kids.
If all these changes to the HPV guidance are confusing, it doesn't help that right now, the HPV vaccine information on the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites look different. (The FDA has approved the shot for people as old as 45, but the CDC is still recommending it only for women through age 26 and for men through age 21.) So let's clear up some of that confusion: With HPV-related cancers on the rise, it's a good moment to review what the HPV vaccine does and who, exactly, should get it.
There are more than 200 types of HPV. Fourteen can cause cancer. HPV is an infection that can be transmitted through genital, anal, or oral sex.
It is also the most common STD in the United States. The virus will infect almost every sexually active person at some point in their lives. There are more than 200 types of the virus '-- and most don't cause serious disease. A few ''low-risk'' types, however, can cause warts around the genitals, anus, mouth, or throat, according to the National Cancer Institute.
But HPV can also be deadly, one of a few STDs linked to cancer. It now causes nearly all cervical cancers, 90 percent of anal cancers, 60 percent of penile cancers, and 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers (i.e. cancers of the back of the throat, the tonsils, and the base of the tongue).
Again, not all types of the virus. What doctors really worry about are 14 ''high-risk'' types that can cause cancers. And the prevalence of those dangerous HPV types is high. According to an April 2017 CDC report, one in four men and one in five women in 2013 to 2014 had a high-risk type of genital HPV, while one in 25 men and women had a high-risk type of oral HPV. (Not everyone who has one of these types will develop cancer.)
As people have shifted toward having more partners and more oral sex, HPV-related cancer cases have been creeping up. Between 1999 and 2015, HPV-related oropharyngeal cancers in middle-aged people increased 2.7 percent per year among men and 0.8 percent per year among women.
Other HPV-related diseases like genital and anal cancers in men and women are on the rise, too. According to the CDC, the number of new HPV cancers reported annually increased significantly from 30,115 in 1999 to 43,371 in 2015.
The HPV vaccine is a cancer- and wart-preventing vaccine The good news is that the HPV vaccine targets these high-risk, cancer-causing types. (An added benefit: The vaccine also prevents genital warts.
In the US, only the 9-valent HPV vaccine has been available since 2017. Produced by Gardisil, it targets nine HPV types: 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58. Two of these types, HPV types 6 and 11, are considered ''low risk'' because they only cause warts. The rest are deemed ''high-risk.''
In a recent review of the research from 14 high-income countries published in the Lancet, researchers found the vaccine dramatically reduced HPV in girls and young women, aged 13-to-24, and cut the incidence of precancerous lesions, within this age group as well.
The vaccine, the study found, reduced the rate of genital and anal warts in girls and women up to age 29. And even though boys and men weren't always the target of HPV vaccine campaigns, they benefitted too: Anal and genital wart diagnoses dropped in males, likely because fewer HPV viruses were going around.
There's also evidence is emerging that it can prevent oropharyngeal cancers too '-- which is encouraging, since they're on the rise.
That's why doctors are now calling the HPV vaccine ''one of the most significant cancer prevention tools ever developed'' and it is why countries are like Australia are talking about fully ''eliminating'' cervical cancer.
The recommendation of who should get the shot just expandedBecause the HPV vaccine prevents infections, it works best when people get it before they become sexually active and are exposed to the virus. In June, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP '-- which sets the national vaccine schedule '-- reaffirmed that children should start getting the shots early.
''The absolute goal is to get the HPV vaccine to girls and boys ages 11 to 12,'' said Linda Eckert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington. ''That's the key target population, and that's when it has the highest efficacy.'' So ACIP recommends males and females start getting two doses of vaccine around 11 or 12 years old and before age 15.
But now, they're recommending both girls and boys, age 15 to 26, get vaccinated (with three doses '-- because the body's immune response to the shot declines with age).
They're also suggesting people aged 27 to 45, who haven't been fully vaccinated, talk to their doctors about possibly getting the HPV shots, too. The idea is that there may be people in this age group who could benefit from the vaccine, even later in life. ''If you are married, monogamous, and 35 '-- there's probably no reason to run out and get the HPV vaccine. But if you're dating and having new partners, and are at risk for acquiring new infections, it would be worth having a discussion with your provider,'' Eckert said.
If you've read different recommendations at the CDC and FDA about who should get the vaccine and when, there's a good reason for that, Eckert said. While the FDA approved the expanded age range last October, the ACIP only voted on it in June, and CDC hasn't fully implemented ACIP's policy yet. So while doctors can start following ACIP's new guidance, it's not yet clear that health insurers will.
America's HPV vaccine rates are still too low America lags behind other industrialized nations when it comes to HPV vaccination rates. A major reason for the lag is that some parents are concerned about the vaccine's safety '-- even though there's no good data suggesting significant safety concerns. And it doesn't help that politicians and popular media figures, like Alex Jones, spread fear about the shot.
In most states, the vaccine isn't required for school entry, like the polio or measles-mumps-rubella vaccines are. According to the American Cancer Society, only Rhode Island, Virginia, and DC have HPV vaccine requirements in place (and Puerto Rico also has also recently added it to the list of routine shots).
There's also hesitancy among doctors to recommend the vaccine, in part because of the sexual stigma around it. But when doctors suggest the shot, the CDC reports, teens are likely to receive it. Because the vaccine is so effective, oncologists are working on a rebranding effort to encourage pediatricians and family doctors to more forcefully endorse immunization.
Coverage rates have been slowly been growing. It's recommended for boys and girls ages 9 to 26, and now seven in 10 girls and six in 10 boys get the shot. Again, that's still lower than the uptake of other routine vaccinations '-- such as the polio or measles-mumps-rubella vaccines '-- which typically hovers around 80 or 90 percent.
Brexit
Boris Johnson takes his revenge and sacks over half the cabinet | Politics | The Guardian
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:40
Boris Johnson has signalled his ruthless determination to deliver Brexit and stoked speculation about an early general election by sacking more than half of Theresa May's cabinet and packing his team with Vote Leave veterans and rightwing free marketers.
Despite the new prime minister's repeated insistence that he is a one-nation Conservative, he handed the job of home secretary to Priti Patel, who advocated the return of capital punishment as recently as 2011, and the Treasury to Thatcher devotee Sajid Javid.
Dominic Raab, who made headlines during his own leadership campaign when he said he would not call himself a feminist, is the new foreign secretary, and will be Johnson's stand-in at prime minister's questions.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, which led calls for May to be deposed, is the new leader of the House of Commons.
Johnson's rival for the leadership, Jeremy Hunt, and his supporters fell victim to a merciless purge. Hunt himself turned down a demotion from foreign secretary to defence secretary and instead chose to return to the backbenches.
Johnson had already sparked consternation among some colleagues by announcing that Dominic Cummings, the controversial director of the Vote Leave campaign, would be a senior adviser in his Downing Street team.
Cummings is a seasoned campaigner, and his arrival at Johnson's side increased expectations among MPs that a general election will be triggered within months.
As Johnson prepared to enter No 10 for the first time after returning from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday, where the Queen had confirmed his appointment, he promised to defy ''the doubters, the doomsters and the gloomsters''.
He insisted he would strike a ''new deal'' with the EU27, without the ''anti-democratic backstop'' and complete Brexit before the Halloween deadline. ''The buck stops here,'' he said.
''We are going to fulfil the repeated promises of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on 31 October, no ifs or buts,'' he said.
''I have every confidence that in 99 days' time we will have cracked it. But you know what, we aren't going to wait 99 days, because the British people have had enough of waiting. The time has come to act, to take decisions, to give strong leadership and to change this country for the better.''
Johnson also made a series of one nation-style policy pledges. He promised to recruit another 20,000 police officers, stop people having to wait three weeks to see their GP, begin 20 new hospital upgrades, and boost schools spending per pupil.
But the new prime minister then crossed to his office in the Commons, where he carried out a comprehensive cull of cabinet ministers who had backed Hunt, or criticised his approach or policies.
Other victims of the clearout included Scottish secretary David Mundell, education secretary Damian Hinds and defence secretary Penny Mordaunt.
In assembling his new top team, Johnson turned to trusted Vote Leave colleagues, including Raab, Patel, Theresa Villiers, who is the new environment secretary, and Andrea Leadsom, who will be business secretary.
Former defence secretary Gavin Williamson will be education secretary, despite having been sacked by May less than three months ago on suspicion of leaking security secrets. Patel was also fired by May, for organising private meetings in Israel without informing officials.
As recently as 2011, Patel said, ''I do think that when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in the country and where we have seen murderers and rapists '... reoffend and do those crimes again and again, I think that's appalling. On that basis alone I would support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.'' By 2016 she had changed her mind, however.
Critics swiftly labelled Johnson's new administration the most rightwing since the 1980s. SNP MP Pete Wishart said, ''Boris Johnson's nightmare Tory government is shaping up to be the worst since Thatcher '' packed full of extreme Brexiteers and rabid rightwingers who want to drag us back to a bygone era.''
Former Tory MP Nick Boles, who quit the party over his colleagues' failure to compromise on Brexit, tweeted: ''The hard right has taken over the Conservative Party. Thatcherites, libertarians and No Deal Brexiters control it top to bottom.''
Nick Boles MP (@NickBoles)The hard right has taken over the Conservative Party. Thatcherites, libertarians and No Deal Brexiters control it top to bottom. Liberal One Nation Conservatives have been ruthlessly culled. Only a few neutered captives are being kept on as window dressing. 1/
July 24, 2019Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general who has led the battle against a no-deal Brexit, was cutting about Johnson in an interview on Sky News, saying: ''I don't share his optimism about his opinion of himself.''
Asked how he would describe him, the Conservative MP said: ''He's a charlatan. That is the clear evidence of his career and the way he has operated politically.''
He added: ''Those of us who have worked alongside him and had a chance of watching him can see for ourselves his modus operandi and his capacity both for deception and self-deception and those are the two ingredients of charlatanism.''
Ian Lavery, the Labour party chair, said: ''Boris Johnson's first act as PM has been to appoint a cabinet of hardline conservatives who will only represent the privileged few.''
Johnson will hold his first cabinet meeting at No 10 on Thursday morning, before making a statement to the Commons, where he is likely to receive a foretaste of the challenges that await him if he is to secure a majority for any new Brexit deal.
Several cabinet veterans, including Greg Clark, David Gauke and Philip Hammond, have made clear they intend to continue making the case against a no-deal Brexit from the backbenches '' and using every parliamentary device they can to tie their new leader's hands.
Asked about the prospect of an autumn poll, Rees-Mogg told ITV's Robert Peston: ''It is clearly not the policy of the government to bring about a general election.'' But he added: ''It's impossible to rule out, looking at the parliamentary arithmetic.''
Earlier, Johnson was joined outside Downing Street by his partner, Carrie Symonds, who has stayed away from the limelight in recent weeks following the furore over their late-night row.
Members of his new staff also lined up to hear him, including Andrew Griffith, a Sky executive who lent him a £9.5m townhouse to plan his campaign and will become his business adviser, and Munira Mirza, one of his deputies as London mayor, who will become No 10 policy chief.
Matt Hancock, who threw his weight behind Johnson after abandoning his own tilt at the top job, and has been a key public face of his campaign, will remain as health secretary.
Hancock had said on Wednesday morning that, ''uniting the party, and through that then uniting the country, is a really important part of what Boris is talking about''.
But Johnson's picks for the top table pointed to a decision to assemble an ideologically coherent top team, rather than placating fretful remainers.
Allies said that as the new prime minister had indicated during his leadership campaign, every member of his hand-picked cabinet is fully committed to delivering Brexit, come what may, on 31 October.
Cummings's old boss, Michael Gove, another Vote Leave veteran, will be chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster '' the ceremonial title previously held by May's cabinet fixer, David Lidington, who resigned on Wednesday rather than serve in a Johnson administration.
Gove has been handed the task of overseeing preparations for a no-deal Brexit, a job that previously fell to the Department for Exiting the EU. Brexiters have long claimed the government was not doing enough to get ready for the possibility of leaving.
Gove warned in January that if Britain left the EU without a deal in place, ''winter is coming''.
Who's who in Boris Johnson's first cabinet | Politics | The Guardian
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:41
Sajid Javid: chancellorThe former home secretary always seemed set for a high-ranking position in Boris Johnson's cabinet, as an already prominent minister who was seen as having boosted his status in the race to succeed Theresa May. He will now replace Philip Hammond as chancellor.
The former investment banker '' who has never denied the theory that he took a pay cut of about 97% when he became an MP in 2010 '' has risen through the ministerial ranks, serving under May as communities secretary and then replacing Amber Rudd as home secretary after she quit over the Windrush scandal.
Javid used his profile and backstory to propel an energetic leadership campaign as far as the fourth round of MPs' voting, after which he calmly moved his support behind Johnson.
As he said many times during the process, Sajid is not your typical Conservative minister. He was born in Rochdale to parents who had moved from Pakistan. Javid's father initially worked as a bus driver and then opened a shop in Bristol.
Javid became a Tory activist at university and then joined a US investment bank, saying it felt more open than the UK equivalents, where bosses hinted someone from his background would be better off lowering their ambitions.
A diligent minister if often criticised as an uninspiring speaker, Javid saw his profile rise during the leadership campaign, not least when during a TV debate he nudged his fellow candidates into agreeing to an inquiry into Islamophobia in the party. PW
Dominic Raab: foreign secretary and first secretary of stateThe former Brexit secretary thought he had a real chance of entering No 10, but he failed to win over the Eurosceptic hardliners who ended up flocking to Johnson. Within the party, he is considered a rightwinger with an interest in civil liberties, as a former chief of staff to David Davis before entering parliament.
He has in the past proposed allowing state schools to make a profit, scrapping all ''levies subsidising green technologies'' on energy bills, ending the minimum wage for under-21s working for small businesses, and making it easier for companies to sack underperforming employees. He has also spoken of wanting to scrap the Government Equalities Office, which he describes as ''pointless'', and merging the Department for International Development (DfID) into the Foreign Office.
During the leadership campaign, he defended his claim that feminists are some of the most obnoxious bigots and that men are getting a raw deal, saying he does not want ''double standards'' in the debate on equality. RM
Priti Patel: home secretaryA key face of the Vote Leave campaign, Patel was sacked by May as international development secretary for a highly ill-advised freelance trip to Israel where she touted her influence with politicians '' without the knowledge of the Foreign Office.
Born to Gujarati parents who fled Uganda in the 1960s, she is a well-known voice on the right of the Conservative party. She was a controversial appointment at DfID, having previously called for the foreign aid target to be scrapped. She also once advocated bringing back the death penalty.
Patel flirted with a leadership bid and sparked frenzied speculation that she would run when seen filming a promotional video in Victoria Tower gardens. But she decided against it and gave her support to Johnson, a close ally when they both sat round the cabinet table. He gave vocal support to her when she was mired in the scandal that led to her resignation. JE
Michael Gove: chancellor of the Duchy of LancasterIn being made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster '' effectively minister without portfolio '' Gove could either be rewarded by Johnson with a key, roving brief or utterly sidelined.
If the latter happens, it will be a notable demotion for an energetic and strongly pro-Brexit minister who narrowly missed out on reaching the final stage of the Tory leadership campaign.
This time, Gove did not overtly alienate Johnson, but there is still bad blood between the pair for the way Gove '' as Johnson would see it '' double-crossed him in the last leadership election in 2016, deciding at the last moment to stand himself rather than support Johnson, who then pulled out.
Like Johnson a former newspaper columnist, in his case for the Times, Gove has represented the safe Surrey Heath seat since 2005.
After a junior spell on the shadow front benches, he was made education secretary by David Cameron in 2010 and oversaw a massive change of the schools system, including a mass process of academy conversions, winning plaudits from many Tories but alienating many teachers, school leaders and others in the system.
Gove was notably better received as justice secretary, in part as he spent much of his time undoing the disastrous work of Chris Grayling. He lost the job when May took over, but a year later was moved to the environment brief, where he energetically went to war on plastic and won some cautious praise from environmental groups. PW
Matt Hancock: health secretaryThe Tiggerish health secretary has kept the same job he had at the start of the day. Hancock will be relieved to stay in the cabinet, but could be forgiven for wishing it was a promotion given the mockery endured over his rapid swivel to support Johnson after his own very differently oriented campaign ran out of steam.
A former protege of George Osborne, Hancock comes firmly from the more liberal, modernising side of the party, and made his tilt for the leadership insisting that a no-deal Brexit would be a bad mistake.
After his ejection from the fight in the first round of voting, rather than swinging behind a more similarly minded candidate such as Rory Stewart, or even Michael Gove, Hancock revealed that he would support Johnson as a ''one nation'' Conservative. There then followed several rather uncomfortable media appearances in which the Johnson camp sent Hancock out to defend policies he had previously condemned.
It is not the first time Hancock has pulled off such a miraculous escape. As chief of staff to Osborne before entering parliament in 2010, Hancock was closely associated with the Osborne''Cameron circle, and rose steadily through junior ministerial ranks under the coalition and beyond.
When May took over in 2016, he might have expected a return to the backbenches, but was spared, possibly because '' as with Johnson '' he was an early backer of the future PM in the leadership contest. Within 18 months he was in the cabinet as culture secretary where, among other achievements, he launched the much mocked ''Matt Hancock app'' '' and then on to health. PW
Andrea Leadsom: business secretaryThe minister who arguably tipped the balance in May finally deciding to quit No 10, Leadsom resigned as leader of the House of Commons on 22 May, saying she had lost faith with the government's plan for Brexit. Two days later, May finally announced her timetable for departure.
The loss of Leadsom was significant because while she is a confirmed and longtime leave supporter, she had also proved a pragmatist, and one who had worked tirelessly, if in vain, to try to shepherd May's doomed Brexit plan through the Commons.
Leadsom had been, alongside May, the last of two MPs in the race to succeed David Cameron in 2016, but dropped out after suggesting in an interview she had more of a stake in the national future as she is a mother. May does not have children. Leadsom apologised to the new PM.
May made Leadsom environment secretary, but a year later moved her to Commons leader, something seen by some as a slight demotion. But Leadsom took on the role with some gusto, becoming centrally involved not just in Brexit legislation, but also moves to tackle bullying and harassment in parliament.
A former financial sector manager before entering parliament in 2010 to represent the newly created seat of South Northamptonshire, Leadsom is also a vocal advocate of more government intervention in early-years services to improve people's life chances. PW
Liz Truss: international trade secretaryThe former chief secretary to the Treasury is a staunch ideological supporter of Johnson, supporting his plan to cut taxes for higher earners with notably more enthusiasm than he did.
The MP for South West Norfolk since 2010 was briefly justice secretary before moving to the Treasury '' where her staunchly pro-Brexit views put Truss at odds with her boss, Philip Hammond.
Truss styles herself as a champion of free enterprise, low taxes, reduced regulations and the gig economy, something she insists will make the party appeal to younger voters '' a generation she regularly, and slightly cringingly, refers to as ''Uber-riding, Airbnb-ing, Deliveroo-eating freedom fighters''.
Also known for a hugely earnest and much-memed speech about cheese imports, Truss grew up in a leftwing family in Paisley and then Leeds, but moved gradually towards the Conservatives, via the Lib Dems.
A qualified accountant, she worked for Shell and Cable & Wireless, but was still only 25 when she contested her first Westminster seat, Hemsworth, in 2001. After another false start in 2005 she was adopted in her current safe seat.
In parliament, Truss soon set out her views '' along with Dominic Raab ,she was among five Tory MPs who wrote Britannia Unchained, a 2012 booklet dedicated to unbridled free enterprise, one much quoted section of which condemned the British people as ''among the worst idlers in the world''. PW
Theresa Villiers: environment secretaryAnother longtime Brexiter returning to government under Johnson, Villiers represents the decidedly suburban London-fringes seat of Chipping Barnet, but has a prior political interest in farming and animal welfare issues.
A lawyer by training before becoming an MEP, Villiers took her Westminster seat in 2005, and immediately became shadow chief secretary to the Treasury under the departing Tory leader, Michael Howard. David Cameron made her shadow transport secretary, then a junior minister in the coalition, and she spent four years as Northern Ireland secretary. She left government when May took over in No 10, after refusing a more junior role.
As environment secretary, she will take on a brief handled energetically by Michael Gove, and will oversee potentially hugely tricky challenges in the farming sector post-Brexit, especially in the event of no deal. PW
Gavin Williamson: education secretaryA positively Lazarus-like return to cabinet for the former defence secretary, a mere 84 days after he was dismissed in circumstances arguably even murkier than those that led to Priti Patel's departure.
Williamson was sacked without ceremony by May on 1 May over what was called ''compelling'' evidence of his role in a leak from the National Security Council of Huawei's involvement in the UK's 5G network.
Williamson was summoned to May's Commons office, where she confronted him with the evidence and offered him the opportunity to resign. He refused, and she immediately fired him. The ex-minister railed against what he called a ''kangaroo court''.
As a former chief whip, with an in-depth knowledge of the Tory party machinery, Williamson was a key member of Johnson's campaign team, and had been expected to return to government.
Education is a complex brief, and doubters will wonder whether he might struggle, as seemed to be the case at defence. There, Williamson attracted some mockery for his seemingly naive machismo in the job, such as saying Russia should ''go away and shut up''.
Alok Sharma: secretary of state for international developmentSharma is a former accountant in the marginal seat of Reading West who has held various junior ministerial roles and campaigned to remain in the referendum. Born in India, he is not a big figure in parliament, but backed Johnson. He is tipped for promotion despite his support for HS2 and Heathrow, which the new prime minister is sceptical about. RM
Amber Rudd: work and pensions secretaryShe once described Johnson as someone she wouldn't want to accept a lift home from a party with, but Rudd has made clear that she would be willing to take a seat at his cabinet table, despite their differences, and keeps her old post.
Rudd attended the prestigious girls' school Cheltenham Ladies' College, and pursued a career in finance '' working for JP Morgan, and the family investment company Monticello '' before entering parliament in 2010.
Previously slated as a potential leadership candidate herself, Rudd's reputation suffered a significant blow when she had to resign as home secretary over the treatment of the Windrush generation.
She says she has learned from that episode to ask more questions and get more involved in the day-to-day running of her department.
At the Department for Work and Pensions, she has struck a markedly different tone from her predecessor, Esther McVey, admitting that it was sometimes taking claimants too long to receive universal credit payments, and and introducing several modest reforms.
The MP for Hastings and Rye, Rudd backed Jeremy Hunt's candidacy for No 10, introducing him alongside Penny Mordaunt, and is a co-chair of the One Nation Group of Tory MPs, which acts as a counterweight to the ardently pro-Brexit European Research Group. She has a perilously small majority, of just 346 votes. HS
Ben Wallace: defence secretaryAn MP for almost 15 years and a frontbencher for 12, Wallace will nonetheless be one of the lesser-known figures in Boris Johnson's new cabinet, where he has replaced Penny Mordaunt as defence secretary.
Formerly the security minister in the Home Office, he has a military background, having served as an officer in the Scots Guards in Northern Ireland, among other postings, before working in the defence industry.
From 1999 to 2003 he was a member of the Scottish parliament, standing down to seek a Westminster seat in England. In 2005 he won the Lancaster and Wyre seat, switching to the newly created Wyre and Preston North constituency after a rejig of boundaries.
From 2007 he worked in the Scotland and Northern Ireland offices, and as a whip, before entering the Home Office when May became PM. PW
Stephen Barclay: Brexit secretaryBarclay was little known outside Westminster when he was first appointed May as Brexit secretary to succeed Raab, who resigned over her deal. He was considered by Brussels to be better prepared than the first Brexit secretary, David Davis, and easier to deal with than Raab.
But as an early backer of Johnson, he clashed with Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, when delivering the sobering message that Johnson now considered May's deal dead. He has recently championed the need to continue with high spending on no-deal preparations and described the prospect as ''under-priced''. RM
Nicky Morgan: culture, media and sport secretaryAnother return for a cabinet minister culled by May. Morgan spent two years as education secretary under David Cameron, but was removed by May in 2016.
Relations between the pair did not improve when Morgan was dropped from a group of backbench MPs set for a private meeting with the prime minister after she criticised May for wearing £995 trousers.
At that point Morgan, a remain supporter, seemed set for a long career as a backbench Brexit malcontent, along with her role chairing the Treasury select committee.
However, she then became a key player in the convoluted and doomed Brexit fudge known as the Malthouse compromise (after instigator and fellow Tory MP Kit Malthouse) and thus worked herself back into favour with the leave camp.
A former corporate lawyer, Morgan entered parliament in 2005, representing Loughborough. She took seven years to join the Tory front bench, but then ascended rapidly. PW
Grant Shapps: transport secretaryShapps has been rewarded for his role helping Johnson's successful leadership campaign. His previous roles include being both Tory party co-chairman and a Cabinet Office minister from 2012 to 2015, when he became a minister at the Department for International Development. He resigned from that role in November 2015 in the wake of revelations that he had been warned about bullying in the party before the death of one of its young activists.
In March 2015 he admitted '' after three years of denials '' that he had had a second job as a ''multimillion-dollar web marketer'' under the pseudonym Michael Green for at least year after he first became an MP.
Robert Jenrick: housing, communities and local government secretaryA big promotion for the youngest member of Johnson's cabinet, and the most recent arrival in Westminster. The former lawyer, 37, entered parliament in 2014 in the Newark byelection, caused by the resignation of the incumbent MP, Patrick Mercer.
Jenrick has been on the Tory front bench for even less time, taking a junior Treasury role at the start of 2018.
As the minister ultimately responsible for housing, he might have to explain a property portfolio which, at the time of his election, stretched to three homes, two in London and a country estate. His current register of interests lists only one extra home. PW
Robert Buckland: justice secretaryA promotion from prisons minister '' where he had only been for 11 weeks, taking over from Rory Stewart '' to a brief that fits his professional background. Buckland was a criminal barrister in Wales for almost 20 years, and sat part-time as a judge before entering parliament in 2010.
His initial frontbench role was the more junior legal job of solicitor general. A former remainer, Buckland pushed strongly for May's Brexit deal, but has not been critical of Johnson. PW
Julian Smith: Northern Ireland secretaryThe former chief whip gets a role that will be significant given the negotiations with the EU over the fate of the post-Brexit border on the island of Ireland, and the Tories' reliance on the Democratic Unionist party for their slim parliamentary majority.
Other cabinet ministerial roles go to '...Alun Cairns survives as Welsh secretary and Alister Jack replaces David Mundell as Scottish secretary. Natalie Evans is lord privy seal, and leader of the Lords. James Cleverley becomes Conservative party chair and minister without portfolio.
Other appointees who will also attend cabinetJacob Rees-Mogg has been appointed Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons. Rishi Sunak will also attend cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury, as will Esther McVey, who becomes minister of state at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Chris Skidmore, minister of state for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation. Geoffrey Cox stays on as attorney general, while Mark Spencer is chief whip.
Brandon Lewis has been appointed a Home Office minister. And the prime minister's brother, Jo Johnson, has been appointed a minister of state at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for Education. Oliver Dowden was named paymaster general and minister for Cabinet Office. Kwasi Kwarteng becomes minister of state at BEIS. They will all attend cabinet, according to Downing Street.
SJWBLMLGBBTQQIAAPK
Wait! US & UK doctors warn against hormones/surgery for trans-identified kids '-- RT World News
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 23:56
Medical professionals in the US and UK are sounding the alarm about the growing use of ''hormonal and surgical interventions'' for children who are confused about their gender identity, saying that more studies are required.
Members of the conservative childrens' advocacy group the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) wrote a letter on Monday to the Surgeon General of the United States, warning about the effects of gender-reassignment surgeries and hormonal drugs on minors, saying such interventions have ''not undergone long-term study.''
The ACP called the issue a ''grave public health concern'' and said that the drastic methods have become the new ''standard of care'' in lieu of ''ethical psychotherapy'' for children and teens who present with gender dysphoria (GD).
Also on rt.com 'Experiment on kids': Cross-sex hormone therapy age down to 8 in US govt-funded study, doctor finds The ACP letter cites research which claims that 61-98 percent of youth affected by GD will ''outgrow'' it ''if allowed to progress through natural puberty.''
The group also laments that healthcare professionals are ''increasingly prohibited from investigating psychosocial factors'' which may have led to GD symptoms and fear being penalized or accused of discrimination.
Dual warningsThe warnings are coming from both sides of the pond. Earlier this month, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) cautioned that there is a lack of ''robust evidence'' about the long-term effects of puberty-blockers and hormonal drugs.
In a 12-page position paper, the RCGP complained that family doctors were under pressure to provide gender dysphoria services that ''lie outside the remit'' of their generalist expertise. The paper advises that more research is needed on the pros and cons of medical treatment vs. a less dramatic ''wait and see'' approach.
Also on rt.com A girl at mom's, a boy at dad's: 'Transgender' Texas child caught in custody battle Medical treatment of children with GD often begins with the prescription of puberty blockers, which are given to halt normal onset of puberty. Next, the child is given ''cross-sex hormones'' '' in other words, hormones which match their stated identity rather than their biologically assigned sex. At a later stage, the patients undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
The side-effects of these interventions can include ''sterility, sexual dysfunction, surgical complications, thromboembolic and cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, malignancy, and persistently elevated rates of suicide,'' the ACP advises.
'Surge' of GD in girlsThe medical warnings come as the UK's only child gender clinic, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), reported significant increases in the numbers of children seeking to transition to the opposite gender '' an overwhelming majority of them (74 percent) being young girls seeking to transition to a male identity.
The Sunday Times reported on the ''surge'' last month, noting that the majority (54 percent) of the children referred to the clinic are 14 or under. In the UK, 17 year-olds are now allowed to be seen in adult gender clinics and to independently consent to treatment. The newspaper also recalled that a ''review'' into the new wave of girls seeking to transition had been ordered by the former equalities minister Penny Mordaunt last year, but ''little has been heard of it since.''
While transgender rights activists argue that the huge increases are due to growing public acceptance of a previously taboo issue, skeptics say that impressionable children are being confused by activists who 'promote' the idea of changing genders and who pressure health professionals to immediately accept a child's assertion that he or she is the opposite sex, rather than first exploring psychological reasons why a child may feel that way.
Patients are told blockers are "fully reversible." Entwistle says: ''no one knows what the impacts are on children's brains, so how is it possible to make this claim?'' "In practice, nearly all those given the drugs go on to take irreversible sex-change hormones once they turn 16."
'-- TransgenderTrend (@Transgendertrd) July 21, 2019WhistleblowerThe RCGP warning was shortly followed by claims from a National Health Service (NHS) psychologist who said poor and potentially abused children are being misdiagnosed as transgender. Dr Kirsty Entwistle, a former GIDS worker, said children can present with GD due to ''traumatic early experiences,'' including sexual abuse, but those cases are not being investigated properly because medical professionals fear being labeled ''transphobic.''
Entwistle said she left GIDS after being accused of transphobia herself, after raising concerns over the skyrocketing numbers of young people identifying as transgender. She also claims that GIDS staff tell parents of children that the effects of puberty blockers are ''fully reversible'' despite a lack of evidence on the effect the drugs have on children's brains.
Read more
The BBC reported on Monday that GIDS lowered the age it offered kids puberty blockers based on a study which is being investigated by the Health Research Authority. The drugs, which are given to children as young as 11 years-old in Britain, could be linked to increases in suicidal thoughts.
De-transitioning?Some recent reporting has also explored the phenomenon of the "detransitioners"; individuals who believed themselves to be transgender before changing their minds and deciding to transition back to their original biological gender. The detransitioners are thought to make up a very small number of the adult trans population.
But the story seems to be different for children. A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that two-thirds of adolescent patients at a clinic in Amsterdam ended up identifying as their original birth-assigned gender. Another study, often called into question by trans activists, found that up to 80 percent of trans kids eventually identified as their birth sex. Canadian sex researcher James Cantor wrote in a blog post in 2016 that ''only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults.''
Instead, he claimed, ''they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks.''
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Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein's High Society Contacts
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:56
A close study of his circle '-- social, professional, transactional '-- reveals a damning portrait of elite New York. Epstein in his townhouse in 2015. Photo: Christopher Anderson for New York Magazine
Epstein in his townhouse in 2015. Photo: Christopher Anderson for New York Magazine
Epstein in his townhouse in 2015. Photo: Christopher Anderson for New York Magazine
Perhaps, at long last, a serial rapist and pedophile may be brought to justice, more than a dozen years after he was first charged with crimes that have brutalized countless girls and women. But what won't change is this: the cesspool of elites, many of them in New York, who allowed Jeffrey Epstein to flourish with impunity. For decades, important, influential, ''serious'' people attended Epstein's dinner parties, rode his private jet, and furthered the fiction that he was some kind of genius hedge-fund billionaire. How do we explain why they looked the other way, or flattered Epstein, even as they must have noticed he was often in the company of a young harem? Easy: They got something in exchange from him, whether it was a free ride on that airborne ''Lolita Express,'' some other form of monetary largesse, entr(C)e into the extravagant celebrity soir(C)es he hosted at his townhouse, or, possibly and harrowingly, a pound or two of female flesh.
If you watch Fox News, you will believe Bill Clinton was Epstein's No. 1 pal and enabler. If you watch MSNBC, this scandal is usually all about Donald Trump. In fact, both presidents are guilty (at the very least) of giving Epstein cover and credibility. There are so many unanswered questions about Epstein, but one that looms over all of them is whether the bipartisan crowd who cleared a path for him will cover its tracks before we can get answers '-- not just Clinton and Trump and all those who drank at Epstein's trough but also (among others) institutions like Harvard, Dalton, and the Council on Foreign Relations, or lawyers like the New York prosecutor Cy Vance Jr., whose office tried to downgrade Epstein's sex-offender status; Kenneth Starr, who tried to pressure Republican Justice Department officials to keep the Epstein case from ever being prosecuted; and Alan Dershowitz, who tried to pressure the Pulitzer Prizes to shut out the Miami Herald for its epic investigative reporting that cracked open the case anew.
In 2015, Gawker published Epstein's ''little black book,'' which had surfaced in court proceedings after a former employee took it from Epstein's home around 2005 and later tried to sell it. He said that the book had been created by people who worked for Epstein and that it contained the names and phone numbers of more than 100 victims, plus hundreds of social contacts. Along with the logs of Epstein's private plane, released in 2015, the book paints a picture of a man deeply enmeshed in the highest social circles.
Collectively, these documents constitute just a glance at the way society opened itself to Epstein in New York, Hollywood, and Palm Beach. In the weeks since his arrest, we have learned even more about the cliques he traveled in and the way they protected him. Though some observers have likened Epstein's enigmatic rise as a glamorous social magnet to that of Jay Gatsby, a more appropriate archetype may be the fixer, sexual hedonist, and (ultimately disbarred) lawyer Roy Cohn. In the 1970s and early '80s, Cohn was a favor broker for boldface chums as various as the top Democratic-machine politicians, the mobster Carmine ''Lilo'' Galante, Nancy Reagan, the proprietors of Studio 54, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Andy Warhol, the publishers Rupert Murdoch and Si Newhouse, Dershowitz, and the ambitious young real-estate developer Donald Trump.
This project is meant to catalogue how Epstein's secure footing in elite spheres helped hide his crimes. It includes influential names listed in his black book, people he flew, funded, and schmoozed, along with others whose connections to him have drawn renewed attention. Certainly, not everyone cited here knew of everything he was up to; Malcolm Gladwell told New York, ''I don't remember much except being baffled as to who this Epstein guy was and why we were all on his plane.'' Some said they never met Epstein at all, or knew of him only through his ex-girlfriend and alleged accomplice, the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Others backed away from him after the scandal. But all of the influential people listed here were attached in some way to Epstein's world. The sum of their names constitutes a more concrete accounting of Epstein's power than could any accounting of his disputed wealth. Consider this a pointillist portrait of enablement that all too chillingly overlaps with a significant slice of the Establishment.
'--Frank Rich
With Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn in 2013. Photo: Elder Ordonez/Elder Ordonez/Splash News
Epstein kept a photo of his friend Allen, the sexual pariah, on his wall and was photographed walking with him on the Upper East Side. They had more than a neighborhood in common. For years before his relationship with Mia Farrow, Allen had carried on with a 16-year-old girl he'd met at Elaine's named Babi Christina Engelhardt. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she wondered if she was the inspiration for Manhattan, Allen's 1979 movie about a man in his 40s who dates a high-school student, which was nominated for two Academy Awards. Engelhardt had sex with Allen more than 100 times, she says, sometimes with Farrow. ''The whole thing was a game that was being operated solely by Woody so we never quite knew where we stood,'' she said. Engelhardt went on to become Epstein's assistant.
Read More: How a Predator Operated in Plain Sight
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.Epstein's ex-girlfriend and her husband, billionaire hedge-funder Glenn Dubin, had Epstein over for Thanksgiving dinner in 2009, telling his probation officer they were ''100 percent comfortable'' with his being around their teenage daughter, Insider reported. She also created a foundation so Epstein could donate to her breast-cancer charity without attaching his name. ''The Dubins are horrified by the new allegations against Jeffrey Epstein,'' they said in a statement. ''Had they been aware of the vile and unspeakable conduct described in these new allegations, they would have cut off all ties and certainly never have allowed their children to be in his presence.''
With Prince Andrew in Central Park in 2010. Photo: Jae Donnelly/News Licensing
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.
Epstein and the second son of Queen Elizabeth II have been friends for years and were introduced, it is generally thought, by Brit Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and longtime aide-de-camp. Epstein has entertained the prince at his townhouse, where he would toss aside regal formalities and refer to him simply, and to English ears heretically, as ''Andy.'' Prince Andrew has had Epstein and Maxwell to shooting parties at Sandringham House, the queen's country retreat in Norfolk. Theirs is an unusual alliance, given their stations '-- the born royal and the Brooklyn boy who made it big '-- but its disparities may be part of the point. ''Jeffrey had Andrew put on a pair of sweatpants for the first time in his life,'' a source told Vanity Fair about the two. ''It was Jeffrey who taught Andrew how to relax.''
But their relationship, and their relaxing, took on darker shades as time went on. Andrew stood by Epstein after his release from a 13-month prison sentence and was the star attraction at the party he threw to reenter society. (Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos also came.) The British press wrung its hands with equal parts pain and glee when it was discovered that Sarah, the perennially indebted Duchess of York '-- Fergie to her Weight Watchers fans '-- had accepted £15,000 from Epstein to pay off one of her creditors, a deal brokered by her ex-husband, and that a former employee at Epstein's Palm Beach manse had alleged in a sworn deposition that the duke was a longtime guest, enjoying massages and naked pool parties. (Prince Andrew denied ever attending, or any awareness of, naked pool parties.) The ongoing affiliation with Epstein likely contributed to the end of Andrew's duties as a U.K. trade envoy. In 2015, Virginia Roberts Giuffre alleged in a court filing that Andrew was one of the powerful friends to whom Epstein lent her out for sex. Buckingham Palace issued a statement emphatically denying the allegation. She hasn't pressed her case further in court. But a photograph of the duke with his arm around a 17-year-old Roberts Giuffre, with Maxwell grinning beside them, didn't help. '--Matthew Schneier
Name found in Epstein's black book.Started the Upper East Side institution Serafina.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.A onetime White House intern who climbed his way to being Bill Clinton's bag carrier, body man, fixer, and all-purpose gatekeeper, Band arranged for the former president to travel to Africa on Epstein's 727 in 2002. Band would go on to help his boss found the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, a choice platform from which he launched his own lucrative favor-trading corporate-advisory firm, Teneo. Throughout that time, he took a number of trips on Epstein's plane and attended parties at his townhouse. Band resigned from his position at CGI in 2012; leaked emails later showed Band and Chelsea Clinton trading accusations of conflicts of interest in a war of influence over her parents. More recently, Band's been teaching a ''Public Service'' class at NYU.
Read More: Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein's Upper East Side Mansion
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Denies knowing Epstein, though he appears in the black book. Recently, Baldwin invited Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who resurfaced the Epstein story, to do a podcast.
In August 2018, the New York Post reported that Bannon had been seen entering Epstein's townhouse. Neither Bannon nor Epstein has commented on the substance of their meeting, but when Ivanka Trump condemned Roy Moore's campaign in Alabama, saying, ''There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children,'' Bannon, who backed Moore, responded, ''What about the allegations about her dad and that 13-year-old?'' It was a clear reference to the woman who had accused Donald Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13.
In the 1975 Dalton School yearbook. Photo: The Dalton School
Barr was ousted shortly before Epstein, 21 and without a college degree, showed up for his first day of work teaching math and physics at the Manhattan's elite Dalton School in the early 1970s. Barr announced his resignation soon after, in February 1974: ''He was disliked by the faculty, he was highly controversial, he hadn't raised much money, he was very conservative,'' said the board's chairman. Barr's leadership style was described as ''authoritarian'' and ''undemocratic'' at the time. Memorably, several former students told the New York Times that Epstein was overly familiar with teenage girls at the school. Donald's son William would intersect with Epstein's orbit while serving as a counsel at Kirkland and Ellis in 2009. The law firm secured Epstein his obscenely lenient 2007 non-prosecution deal, which the Justice Department is now reviewing. In July, Barr the son refused to recuse himself from the ongoing Epstein investigation.
Name found in Epstein's black book.In Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff wrote that Trump, Epstein, and Barrack were a ''set of nightlife musketeers'' in the '80s and '90s.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Names found in Epstein's black book.A wealthy executive whose family established the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, Berkman was sued in 2014 by his administrative assistant, who said she was forced to read emails Berkman had sent to a colleague containing ''pictures of random and unsuspecting women on the street'' '-- that is, creepshots. (The suit was settled.)
Name found in Epstein's black book.>>Owned the club where Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had their first date.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Listed as Debbie in the black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Yes, those von Bismarcks. His nickname, Bola, was listed in the black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.He's perhaps best known for being sentenced to 42 months in prison for fraud, then writing a book about Trump and receiving a pardon. Vicky Ward, who profiled Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2003, said Epstein heavily leaned on Black, who is her ex-husband's uncle (and was her ex-husband's then-boss), to try to exert his influence on Ward.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The billionaire co-founder of Apollo Global Management and chairman of MoMA, Black made Epstein the director of his family foundation in 2001. The foundation continued to list Epstein as director on its tax forms until 2012, four years after he had pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. The foundation now says that Epstein resigned in 2007 and that his name continued to appear on its rolls owing to a ''recording error.'' In 2011, he was listed as an investor in Environmental Solutions Worldwide, a Pennsylvania company, alongside several people close to Black, including his four children. Black himself was seen with Epstein at a movie screening just a few months after Epstein finished probation in 2010, and Epstein was spotted at a party at Black's home in the Hamptons as recently as 2015.
The trial attorney and legal analyst's client roster has included Justin Bieber, Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, and Rush Limbaugh. Black is perhaps best known for representing William Kennedy Smith against rape charges in Palm Beach in 1991. (The Kennedy nephew was acquitted.) In 2005, Black played the ''managing partner'' on NBC's The Law Firm, a knockoff of The Apprentice for up-and-coming lawyers.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Blaine put on a private show for Epstein's dinner guests in 2003, doing card tricks for the likes of Sergey Brin, Mort Zuckerman, and Bill Clinton aide Doug Band. The dinner was organized by Ghislaine Maxwell and included a group of young women who were introduced as Victoria's Secret models.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Epstein had at least one meeting with the sultan when he traveled to Brunei in 2002 with Bill Clinton. Bolkiah and his brother are famous for their lavish spending, including a collection of 2,500 cars and a $1.5 billion palace. Bolkiah was once sued by Miss USA 1997, who claimed she had been held as a sex slave. The suit was dismissed on the grounds that Bolkiah had sovereign immunity.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.The chairman and founder of Investindustrial was a key character in the Paradise Papers international tax-shelter scandal.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Described by Social Life magazine as the ''ambassador of the all-important Hamptons polo culture,'' Borrico is known for hosting polo matches at his estate in Water Mill.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Bourke went to prison for a scheme to bribe government officials in Azerbaijan.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Her clients have included Matt Lauer and the Crown Prince and Princess of Greece.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Like Epstein, Branson enjoys entertaining on a private island.
Name found in Epstein's black book.A friend of Trump, a convicted card cheat, and an accused Formula 1 race fixer, Briatore was a longtime fugitive in the Virgin Islands.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
From left, John Brockman, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Katinka Matson, and Richard Dawkins flying to a TED conference in 2002 aboard Epstein's plane, pictured below Photo: Dailymail.com.
From left, John Brockman, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Katinka Matson, and Richard Dawkins flying to a TED conference in 2002 aboard Epstein's plane... From left, John Brockman, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Katinka Matson, and Richard Dawkins flying to a TED conference in 2002 aboard Epstein's plane, pictured below Photo: Dailymail.com.
What seems new, in flipping through the reams of society photos of perhaps the world's most prolific sexual predator that have been circulating over the past few weeks, is not the powerful and the beautiful who surrounded Epstein, but the intellectuals '-- the Richard Dawkinses, the Daniel Dennetts, the Steven Pinkers. All men, of course. But the group selfies probably shouldn't have been a surprise '-- documents of an age in which every millionaire doesn't just fancy himself a philosopher-king but expects to be treated as such, and every public intellectual wants to be seen as a kind of celebrity.
Cultural shifts like these require visionaries, networkers, salespeople. Brockman is one. A Warhol Factory kid turned freelance philosopher of science turned literary agent to Dawkins and Dennett and Pinker (and many others), in the 1980s he formed a casual salon of like-minded scientists and futurists that came to be known as the Reality Club, a knock against the poststructuralism then dominant in the academy. In the 1990s, he rebranded it as the Edge Foundation, an organization whose central event was an annual online symposium devoted to a single, broad question. In 2000, it was ''What is today's most important underreported story?'' In 2006, ''What is your dangerous idea?''
Epstein was a regular contributor, and his plane '-- to judge from the photographs, at least '-- was an especially appealing way for other contributors to get to ted. They could also catch Epstein at Harvard, where so many of them taught and where he became so prolific a donor that one whole academic program seemed to be run like his private Renaissance ateliers. Epstein had long described himself as a ''scientific philanthropist,'' and in a press release put out by the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation announcing its ''substantial backing'' of Edge, he called it ''the world's smartest think tank.''
Many in Brockman's Edge community are, or were, inarguably significant figures in the American intellectual Establishment: Freeman Dyson, Jared Diamond, Craig Venter, John Horgan, Paul Bloom (to name a random but representative sample). They are also among the gods and heroes of the Trump-era internet community of ''freethinkers,'' whom Eric Weinstein, the venture capitalist and regular Edge contributor, memorably called ''the intellectual dark web.'' The name suggests a self-glamorizing style of dangerous discourse, and as soon as the community was identified, it was criticized as revanchist, an effort to reopen areas of intellectual inquiry '-- about innate differences between the races, say, or the genders '-- now considered problematic, at a minimum. But to listen to the IDW warriors themselves '-- talking about the ''war on free speech'' as though their universities had sent assassins their way rather than tenured chairs '-- their crusade seems motivated just as much by a thin-skinned sense of their own world-historical significance. They were special people, deserving of special acclaim and, of course, special privileges.
Many contributions to Edge were plausibly the products of genuinely special minds. Epstein's were not. In 2008, the year he went to jail for prostitution, the prompt was ''What have you changed your mind about?'' Epstein replied, ''The question presupposes a well defined 'you' and an implied ability that is under 'your' control to change your 'mind.' The 'you' I now believe is distributed amongst others (family friends, in hierarchal structures), i.e. suicide bombers, believe their sacrifice is for the other parts of their 'you.' The question carries with it an intention that I believe is out of one's control. My mind changed as a result of its interaction with its environment. Why? Because it is a part of it.''
''Jeffrey has the mind of a physicist,'' the Harvard professor Martin Nowak has said, incredibly. But what he really did have was the life of a very rich person '-- unable to see any world he felt unqualified to enter and surrounded by too many people enamored with his money to ever hear the word no. '--David Wallace-Wells
Name found in Epstein's black book.The former Warner Music Group CEO, son of the late Seagram's CEO Edgar Bronfman Sr., is related to the NXIVM-sex-cult Bronfmans. His son has a child with pop star M.I.A.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.Brunel was accused in court testimony of having used his agency to supply Epstein with girls. (He was not charged.) He also has a long history of allegations that he had abused his fashion-world position. In 1988, he was the subject of a 60 Minutes investigation alleging that he and a fellow agent sexually assaulted nearly two dozen models. He denied the claims but later told Model author Michael Gross, ''You get laid tonight with a model, is that a crime?'' In 2005, Brunel co-founded the Mc2 modeling agency; Epstein invested $1 million, according to a 2010 deposition.
Name found in Epstein's black book. In 2003, Buck met Maxwell at a fashion party at a New York City boutique. Buck had recently moved on from her seven-year tenure as the editor of Paris Vogue and was writing for its American counterpart and living in New Mexico. She was a lifelong resident of a rarefied social world. Maxwell, a regular on that particular circuit, quickly made a connection. ''Oh, Jeffrey's got a ranch in Santa Fe, blah blah blah,'' Buck recently remembered their conversation going. She gave Maxwell her Santa Fe number and later asked a friend about Epstein and New Mexico. ''His ranch?'' the friend replied. ''As we say in Texas, all hat, no cattle.''
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.Burkle took what were described as humanitarian trips to Africa with Bill Clinton on Epstein's private Boeing 727. According to a 2008 Vanity Fair feature about the former president, ''Burkle's usual means of transport is the custom-converted Boeing 757 that Clinton calls 'Ron Air' and that Burkle's own circle of young aides privately refer to as 'Air Fuck One.''
''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. During a custody battle with ex Uma Thurman, her lawyer asked Busson, a prominent hedge-funder, if he had ever said he was ''addicted to prostitutes.'' (He said no.)
Name found in Epstein's black book. An investor in Uber, Calacanis was a fixture in the early-aughts New York tech scene as the founder and editor of Silicon Alley Reporter. (''I can't tell you how many propositions I get, it's absolutely insane,'' he told the Observer in 2000.) In 2014, Vice awarded him Most Offensive Tweet of the Year for describing as racist the idea of white privilege.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
According to journalist Vicky Ward, he killed portions of a 2003 story that accused Epstein of pedophilia after an office visit from Epstein. (Carter says there wasn't enough on-the-record sourcing.) ''I didn't invent the system. I just lived by the system,'' he said when The New York Times Magazine questioned him about the story last week.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Allegedly the former girlfriend of Prince Andrew.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Has hosted Prince William and Kate Middleton at his villa in Mustique.
Name found in Epstein's black book. When the 1990s playboy settled down, Bill Clinton attended his wedding. In 2017, Chatwal pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation after being accused of trying to set a pair of dogs on fire on a Soho street.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The scene-y Cipriani Italian spots are known for inventing the Bellini cocktail '-- and more infamously for being Harvey Weinstein's ''hunting ground.''
Name found in Epstein's black book. The patriarch of a family so wealthy it operates practically as its own nation-state in Latin America.
Jeffrey Epstein in his townhouse in 2015. Photo: Christopher Anderson for New York Magazine
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.As soon as the Epstein news broke two weeks ago, the taunting and tallying began, suffocating in its familiarity. First were the jeering reminders, as if we didn't know it in our every molecule: It wasn't just Donald Trump who'd be ensnared in this stygian nightmare of underage sexual assault and trafficking of girls, it was Bill Clinton, who'd been a friend and repeat flier on Epstein's plane. Then came the numbers, the attempts to quantify the nature of the Clinton-Epstein relationship. Clinton issued a statement toting up four plane trips, one Epstein meeting in Clinton's Harlem office, one visit to Epstein's home, and zero trips to his island. Meanwhile, reporters recalled that Gawker's published flight logs had tallied 12 separate plane legs and that Epstein had more than 20 numbers and email addresses for Clinton and one signed photo of him in his home, along with one of Woody Allen and one of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
All of this was presented as if these numbers could clarify some exact science of guilt or complicity. The reality is: Yes, Clinton was grimy and had grimy friends, and, more broadly, this is how powerful men have behaved toward women and one another. Yes, we know it's dirty and mean and exhausting and true.
We know, of course, because the shadow of Clinton's sexual history and his associations with other men who have terrible legacies of sexually inappropriate-to-criminal behavior have for decades hung like a greasy and unscrubbable film over the Democratic Party he once led. Clinton palled around not just with Epstein but with Charlie Rose and Harvey Weinstein and Trump himself.
They hung out together and flew together and went to each other's offices and visited each other's homes and appeared on each other's TV shows and had each other's phone numbers and attended each other's weddings and created a circle of money and protection. The prosecutorial and defensive math '-- the haggling over flights and phone numbers '-- is just used to complicate this basic reality.
Those on the left have been going over how we're supposed to feel about him for decades, but in the arguing about it, we have been asked to focus again and again on Clinton and his dick and what he did or didn't do with it. The questions we've asked ourselves and one another have become defining.Are we morally compromised in our defense of him or sexually uptight in our condemnation? Are we shills for having not believed he should have resigned, or doing the bidding of a vindictive right wing if we say that, in retrospect, he probably should have?
Meanwhile, how much energy and time have been spent circling round this man and how we've felt about him, when in fact his behaviors were symptomatic of far broader and more damaging assumptions about men, power, and access to '-- as Trump has so memorably voiced it '-- pussies?
After all, Clinton was elected president during a period that may turn out to be an aberration, just as the kinds of dominating, sexually aggressive behaviors that had been norms for his West Wing predecessors had become officially unacceptable, and 24 years before those behaviors would again become a presidential norm. So yes, Clinton got in trouble, yet still managed to sail out of office beloved by many, his reputation as the Big Dog mostly only enhanced by revelations of his exploits.
But the election of Trump over Clinton's wife, and the broad conversation around sexual assault and harassment that has erupted in its wake, has recast his behavior more profoundly. The buffoonery, the smallness and tantrums of Trump, has helped make clear what always should have been: that the out-of-control behavior toward women by powerful men, the lack of self-control or amount of self-regard that undergirded their reckless treatment of women, spoke not of virility or authority but of their immaturity. And the people who have paid the biggest price for these men's fixation on sex as a measure of manhood have, of course, not been the men themselves.
In Clinton's case, it has been Monica Lewinsky, whose life and name became defined by her relationship to him. It has been his wife, Hillary, who, in addition to having been celebrated and pilloried for her defense of her husband, also had to conduct one of her three historic presidential debates with women who'd accused him of sexual misconduct sitting in the audience, invited there by her opponent as props to unsettle and disempower her. It has been decades of left feminist women who have had Clinton's misdeeds thrown in our faces as proof of our own hypocrisy.
I try sometimes to imagine a contemporary Democratic Party without Bill Clinton in its recent past '-- yes, of course, from a policy perspective, but also simply from a personal one. What if so much energy had not been eaten up by his colleagues, by his wife, by feminists, by his supporters and friends and critics, all of whom had to dance around him, explain their associations with him, or carefully lay out their objections to him without coming off as frigid reactionaries?
What else might we have done with our politics had we not been worrying about Clinton and his grubby buddies? What further power have they taken from us? '--Rebecca Traister
Ghislaine Maxwell attended her wedding after Epstein had first been charged. This was shortly after she skipped a deposition for the Epstein case, claiming she needed to return to the U.K. to be with her deathly ill mother.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
According to a message-pad entry dated January 27, 2005, at 3:55 p.m., Copperfield rang Epstein's line while he was out. The handwritten entry reads, ''Magic David called.''
Among those who attended a dinner at Epstein's townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010.
Lived across the street from Epstein in Manhattan.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Americans often imagine aristocrats floating on a cloud of above-it-all wealth, but even real-life princes, this one descended from a German royal family that long ago united with the most influential and wealthiest family of the Hapsburg Netherlands, could get something out of a relationship with a font of new American money like Epstein.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.
With Alan Dershowitz at Harvard in 2004. Photo: Rick Friedman/Polaris
For around a decade, Dershowitz kept casual company with Epstein, who introduced him to his friends, like Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew.(Dershowitz says he and the prince ended up not getting along because they disagreed about Israel.) Dershowitz visited Epstein's mansions in New York and Palm Beach and occasionally accompanied him on his private plane. He says these trips were family oriented. Once, Epstein lent him the Palm Beach home so he could attend a granddaughter's soccer tournament. Another time, he and his nephew flew down to watch a space launch with another Epstein connection, a top NASA official. He and his wife, Carolyn Cohen, once stayed with Epstein on his island in the Caribbean, where they were joined by another Harvard professor and his family.
When Epstein first started to attract media attention in the early aughts, mainly because of his friendship with former president Bill Clinton, Dershowitz served as a character witness for the reclusive financier.He told Vanity Fair that he shared manuscripts of his books with Epstein before they were published and swore that his money was irrelevant. ''I would be as interested in him as a friend if we had hamburgers on the boardwalk in Coney Island and talked about his ideas,'' he told the magazine.
But Dershowitz says their interactions changed in 2005, when Epstein faced a local police investigation into his relations with underage girls in Palm Beach and he hired Dershowitz as a lawyer. With his assistance, Epstein was able to whittle down the state's indictment against him to a single count of soliciting prostitution. But in the years to come, as Epstein's legal problems compounded, they would eventually ensnare Dershowitz himself. He is also accused of having sex with two of Epstein's alleged victims. ''The stories are so phantasmological,'' Dershowitz says. He recognizes that the #MeToo movement has surfaced countless accounts of preposterous-sounding sexual misbehavior by powerful men and almost all of them have turned out to be true. But Dershowitz swears he is different. ''Mine is the only case, singular, the only one, where I never met the people,'' he says. ''There's no evidence we've ever met, no evidence we were ever in the same place at the same time, ever.''
Today, Dershowitz claims he and Epstein were never really even friends, despite their proximity. ''He was an acquaintance,'' he says. ''In retrospect, I wish I hadn't taken the case, but I didn't see a problem with taking the case. We didn't have a close personal relationship.'' '--Andrew Rice
Read More: Alan Dershowitz Cannot Stop Talking
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Joan Didion's nephew and a Martin Scorsese leading man.
Edelman received funding from the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. ''Jeff is extraordinary in his ability to pick up on quantitative relations,'' he told New York in 2002. ''He came to see us recently. He is concerned with this basic question: Is it true that the brain is not a computer? He is very quick.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.Ex-wife of the late Walid Juffali, billionaire chairman of the largest privately owned enterprise in Saudi Arabia.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. Fekkai's expensive salons are up and down the Upper East Side and in Palm Beach, and he's known for butter blondes, layered bobs, and participating in the polishing up of Hillary Clinton. Epstein's assistants were given house accounts for blowouts, waxing, nails, highlights, the works.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. Epstein loaned Prince Andrew's then-wife $18,000 to pay off some debts. ''I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me,'' Ferguson told the Telegraph in 2011. ''I abhor paedophilia.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Epstein's former girlfriend met him through Bear Stearns, where she was once an associate.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. In 1969, Gell-Mann won the Nobel Prize. In 2003, he told Vanity Fair, '''
'There are always pretty ladies around' when he goes to dinner chez Epstein.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Once a lawyer in the Clinton White House, Ginsberg joined George, then News Corp., then Time Warner. He has also done pro bono speechwriting for Benjamin Netanyahu and now works for SoftBank, a Japanese investment company with close ties to the Saudi government.
''I was invited to the TED conference in maybe 2000 (I can't remember), and they promised to buy me a plane ticket to California,'' Gladwell says now. ''Then at the last minute they said, 'We found you a ride on a private plane instead.' As I recall, there were maybe two dozen TED conferencegoers onboard. I don't remember much else, except being slightly baffled as to who this Epstein guy was and why we were all on his plane.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Jeffrey Epstein didn't have any formal training when he started working at Bear Stearns in 1976, but that wouldn't have mattered to then-CEO Alan ''Ace'' Greenberg, who famously hired ''PSD degrees,'' short for ''poor, smart, with a deep desire to be rich.'' As it happened, Epstein was all three. He came from a modest Coney Island background, had no college degree, and worked a job '-- as a math teacher at Dalton and a tutor to Greenberg's son '-- that was unlikely to support his tastes, which were apparently of the private islands''and''gilded desk''purportedly''belonging''to''J.'
P. Morgan variety. At Bear Stearns, Epstein made a name for himself in the ''special-products division,'' essentially figuring out how to help the rich pay less taxes. ''He would recommend certain tax-advantageous transactions,'' Greenberg's prot(C)g(C), James ''Jimmy'' Cayne, told New York in 2002. Cayne, who succeeded Greenberg in 1993, seems to have become the closer party to Epstein, whose mysterious departure from the firm he publicly defended decades after Epstein's departure. ''Jeffrey said specifically, 'I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself,''
'' Cayne insisted, despite transcripts from an SEC deposition that suggest other concerns around them both. It's easier to imagine Cayne, a cigar-chomping, archetypal fat cat who was infamously off playing bridge when Bear Stearns collapsed in 2008, as a member of Epstein's inner circle than his mentor, a folksy, bow-tie-wearing soul who referred to his successor as ''crude,'' ''full of himself,'' and ''warped'' in a memoir published shortly before his death. At the very least, it seems Cayne and Epstein were both capable of, ah, massaging the truth. '--Jessica Pressler
Name found in Epstein's black book. She was dubbed ''debutante of the decade'' in 1986.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The overtanned C-lister that Hollywood turns to when casting any vaguely and/or mysteriously aristocratic cameo role.
Attended a dinner at Epstein's townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010. ''It was just one of those strange nights,'' she later said.
Epstein dated Haskell, one of Donald Trump's closest friends. ''Jeffrey didn't talk about his past, although he claimed to have been a concert pianist,'' Haskell told the Daily Mail in 1992. ''He told me he was a spy hired by corporations to find major amounts of money which had been embezzled.''
In 2006, the world's most famous brain visited Little St.'¯James, Epstein's private island, which came to be known as ''Pedophile Island.'' Hawking, who was in the Caribbean for a conference, was photographed at a barbecue on the island and aboard a submarine for a tour. According to the Telegraph, ''Epstein is said to have paid for the submarine to be modified for Professor Hawking, who had never been underwater before.''
Read More: Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein's Private 'Pedophile Island'
Before Bernie Madoff, there was Hoffenberg, who in 1985 pleaded guilty to cheating investors out of $460 million '-- at the time, the largest Ponzi scheme ever. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and, after his release in 2013, began sounding the alarm on Epstein, who had worked at Hoffenberg's Towers Financial Corporation after leaving Bear Stearns. He claimed that Epstein had been his co-conspirator in the scheme and that Epstein's fortune was built on Towers Financial's fraud. ''He was great at moving money illegally,'' Hoffenberg says. ''He was the deeper architect to getting things accomplished.''
Hoffenberg claims he was introduced to Epstein by Douglas Leese, a mysterious British arms dealer, and that he paid Epstein $25,000 a month as Towers Financial began making risky plays to take over companies like Pan American World Airways and Emery Air Freight. Advisers on the Pan Am deal included Richard Nixon's attorney general John Mitchell, Nixon's brother Edward, and John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy. The move fell apart after the Lockerbie bombing, and when Towers Financial later went belly-up, Hoffenberg says, the two of them engineered a Ponzi scheme to fill the hole.
''He has a magnificent personality,'' Hoffenberg says. ''He's very easy to interact with, very social, very easy to bond with, an unusually nice person. And he's pretty dynamic on financial savvy. He could move money in different areas to get the stock prices to go up and down.''
Hoffenberg still owes his victims some $1 billion in restitution, and in 2016 he sued Epstein to recover some of the money. (He eventually dropped the suit.) Last year, two victims brought a suit against Epstein making the same claims as Hoffenberg but voluntarily dismissed the suit two months later.
''You're about to see an entire story about this supposed billionaire and the story about his financial empire, which is as big as the tragedy with the girls,'' Hoffenberg says. ''It's billions of dollars, and it's a fiasco.'' '--James D. Walsh
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The onetime journalist is now an emeritus figure in the TED universe thanks to his role at the Aspen Institute and his widely worshipped biography of Steve Jobs.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The director of the documentaries Capturing the Friedmans, about an accused pedophile, and The Jinx, which profiled Robert Durst, the madman at the center of another New York fortune.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. Once a psychiatrist, Henry, Andrew's father, made his fortune in gold and silver speculation.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.Epstein was a co-trustee on 14 parcels of land the Johnson & Johnson heiress owned in Dutchess County, New York. He resigned as a trustee for Johnson's revocable trust at the end of 1998.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. In a world where most women still work for men, and where their jobs are overwhelmingly in the ''service'' or ''caring'' professions, it should surprise no one that Epstein's procurers, schedulers, fixers, and enablers were female.Four women '-- Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Adriana Ross, and Lesley Groff '-- were identified in the 2007 Florida case against Epstein as possible co-conspirators, though none was charged.
Among public figures named in the black book are over 100 listings for ''massages'': female names divided by location and descriptors like ''big-boned,'' ''red head,'' or ''speaks NO English.''
History is full of the self-serving enabling of men by women, ending with the Trump court but not starting there. Was it money? Probably. The word is that Epstein paid his ''executive assistants'' $200,000 a year and let them order takeout from Le Cirque. When Groff had a baby, Epstein gave her a Mercedes and paid for a full-time nanny. ''There is no way I could lose Lesley to motherhood,'' he told the New York Times in 2005 (for a front-page story on the indispensability of good help for Wall Street tycoons).
Marcinkova, referred to in court documents as Epstein's ''sex slave,'' hails from the former Yugoslavia; Ross, a model, is from Poland. Kellen (who has since married a NASCAR driver) was a scheduler, making sure that Epstein always had a slate full of girls, and it was she who sometimes walked the girls up the stairs in the Florida mansion and laid the oils out on the massage table. Marcinkova would have sex with the girls for Epstein's viewing pleasure and sometimes all together. Groff booked travel, and Ross also helped with the calendar. After the Miami Herald published its investigation in 2018, Epstein wired the ''possible co-conspirators'' $250,000 and $100,000, respectively, prosecutors say, to buy their silence. Since then, none of them have been reached for comment. '--Lisa Miller
Name found in Epstein's black book. Widow of Robert Kennedy.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Epstein had his home number.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The seven numbers listed for Kerry in Epstein's address book include the direct line to his presidential campaign.
To bolster their argument that private-jet owner Epstein is a massive flight risk, SDNY prosecutors produced an expired Austrian passport under an alias that listed Saudi Arabia as Epstein's primary country of residence. His lawyers claim the fake ID was for the ''personal protection'' of ''an affluent member of the Jewish faith'' traveling in the Middle East, but it could also point to one of his more secretive income sources.
According to his former friend the journalist Jesse Kornbluth, in the mid-1980s Epstein said he ''worked for governments to recover money looted by African dictators'' and occasionally subcontracted to those same autocrats to ''help them hide their stolen money.'' A source who spoke with journalist Vicky Ward said one of Epstein's clients was the late Saudi arms dealer Khashoggi, a middleman in the Iran-Contra scandal who helped smuggle cash for the Marcos family out of the Philippines. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland for concealing assets and later faced fraud and racketeering charges in the U.S. (He was later acquitted.) That year, he sold his 282-foot yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who soon flipped it to Donald Trump. '--Matt Stieb
Name found in Epstein's black book. One of the century's most notorious practitioners of cutthroat realpolitik, Kissinger served on the Council on Foreign Relations with Epstein.
Epstein and Kissinger served on the Rockefeller University board alongside Nobel laureate Joseph Goldstein, socialite Brooke Astor, and Texas billionaire Robert Bass.
She told Vanity Fair in 2003 that Epstein lived like a ''modern maharaja'' and described his haggling over art prices as ''something like a scene out of the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.''He is amazing,'' Kosslyn said of Epstein in a 2002 New York profile. ''Like a honeybee '-- he talks to all these different people and cross-pollinates. Just two months ago, I was talking to him about a new alternative to evolutionary psychology. He got excited and sent me a check.''
Epstein was a major donor to his program at Arizona State University, and Krauss teamed with the financier to host a conference of Nobel laureates in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2012. ''Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women, but they're not as young as the ones that were claimed,'' he told the Daily Beast in 2011. ''I always judge things on empirical evidence, and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him but I've never seen anything else. So as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people. I don't feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey. I feel raised by it.'' This spring, Krauss retired amid allegations of his own sexual harassment.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.Co-founder of Nickelodeon and, with her husband, Kit, and pal Oprah, the Oxygen network.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The caricature playboy heartthrob at the front of Duran Duran.
Name found in Epstein's black book. A white-collar defense attorney to the stars, Lefcourt has also represented Black Panther Huey P. Newton, Sid Vicious, Tracy Morgan, Russell Crowe, insider trader Michael Milken, and Murder Inc. Records founder Irv Gotti. Lefcourt was formerly married to the daughter of Mortimer Sackler, founder of OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma. '--Matt Stieb
Lefkowitz negotiated the terms of Epstein's negligently lenient plea deal with his former Kirkland & Ellis colleague Alexander Acosta. Now at Columbia Law, he served in both Bush administrations, as director of Cabinet affairs for H.W. and deputy executive secretary to the Domestic Policy Council and special envoy for human rights in North Korea for W. '--Matt Stieb
Name found in Epstein's black book.
With Ghislaine Maxwell at Cipriani Wall Street in 2005. Photo: Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.
She was there at the socialites' dos: Cornelia Guest's holiday bash, Georgette Mosbacher's party for the writer Michael Gross. At real-estate mogul Aby Rosen's birthday, at Harvey Weinstein's cocktail party. At film screenings and store openings and fashion shows, at Tina Brown's home and Arianna Huffington's and the Time 100 Gala. For years, though not lately, Maxwell was a constant on the New York social scene in its most Upper East iteration. She was a friend of everyone, if an intimate of few.
Maxwell seemed to know many rich and powerful men '-- articles mention her dining with Bill Clinton, photos show her partying with Elon Musk and deep in conversation with Stephen Schwarzman '-- but her most durable connection has been with Epstein. She was, as he once put it, his ''best friend.'' Maxwell, 57, has been accused in civil suits of serving as his procuress, luring women and girls into Epstein's web.
In court documents, Epstein's accusers allege that Maxwell '-- who denies all and has never been criminally charged '-- acted as a recruiter, an instructor, and in some cases a participant in the abuse he practiced. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claims Maxwell recruited her on behalf of Epstein when Giuffre was a 16-year-old spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, where Epstein has a home, said much of her grooming came from Maxwell. ''The training started immediately,'' Giuffre said in a video interview with the Miami Herald. ''It was everything down to how to give a blow job, how to be quiet, be subservient, give Jeffrey what he wants.''
''Every pretty girl in New York, in those days, Ghislaine would invite to Jeffrey's,'' said Euan Rellie, an investment banker and social fixture who has known Maxwell for years and who, along with his wife, the author and socialite Lucy Sykes, was a fellow guest at a dinner for Prince Andrew at Epstein's townhouse in the early aughts. Maxwell and Epstein had been attached, but she was ''now an employee of his, as I understood it,'' Rellie said. ''Her job was to jazz up his social life by getting fashionable young women to show up.'' He presumed the young women to be in their 20s.
Tabloid reports on Maxwell claim she managed Epstein's properties from his office on Madison Avenue, which appeared in public records for many years as one of Maxwell's addresses. Epstein, for his part, said she wasn't on the payroll, yet she did errands for him: hunted for a yoga teacher in California and acted as intermediary when he wanted to give his friend the billionaire Les Wexner a family portrait painted by Nelson Shanks.
She was said to be wickedly funny and unusually knowledgeable, glamorous, and, on top of that, British. (''I think New Yorkers are charmed by that high-end English accent,'' photographer Patrick McMullan said.)
What's more, she was exotic. She had explored the seas and could pilot a helicopter, or maybe a submarine, one acquaintance thought '-- a MacGyver of the gala circuit.
Maxwell arrived in New York in the early '90s, on the cusp of her 30th birthday. English-born and poshly educated, she was the favorite daughter of Robert Maxwell, the English media mogul, whose holdings included newspapers, notably the tabloid Daily Mirror in London, and the Macmillan publishing house in the U.S. Ghislaine had founded a social club for women in London and worked for another of her father's papers, and, according to the New York Post, she came as his emissary to American society when he bought the New York Daily News in 1991.
But that same year, Robert was found dead '-- by suicide, murder, or accident (the official inquest's ruling, though opinions vary) '-- in the Atlantic, off the Canary Islands. (He was last seen on the deck of his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine.) Soon after, he was discovered to have plundered the pension funds of the Mirror to shore up his floundering empire. Ghislaine was reported to have an income for life from a family trust, but at £80,000 a year, it would hardly be enough to sustain a high-flying lifestyle.
The meet-cute of Epstein and Maxwell in New York is unclear, and neither has historically gone into any great detail. By 1992, they were already linked, showing up at a Mar-a-Lago party with each other in Palm Beach, where Trump and Epstein ogled women together in front of NBC cameras. Suffice it to say they were romantically linked and then platonically linked. (Epstein told people his former paramours move ''up, not down,'' to friend status.)
For a woman seen everywhere about town, she is curiously silent in the press, except where ocean conservation is concerned. In 2008, she hosted a cocktail party for the board of the nonprofit Oceana at her townhouse on East 65th Street. And by 2012, she had launched the TerraMar Project, a conservation nonprofit of her own, of which, according to tax filings, she was president but from which she drew no salary. She gave a ted Talk about its work and talked it up at the U.N. and in the press, which credited TerraMar as her ''brainchild.''
From the New York social world, she has vanished. ''I have not seen her in a zillion years,'' one acquaintance said. The party photos dried up in 2016. Her 65th Street townhouse was sold for just over $15 million that year. Where is she now? One social-watcher guessed the islands; others think Europe. She incorporated a company '-- Ellmax, a play on her name '-- in the U.K., and TerraMar's last two years of tax filings listed the address of an accounting firm near Boston. (An executive there declined to provide any forwarding information.)
''She seemed like a woman who didn't have any real job, didn't have any real boyfriend, had lost her dad,'' Rellie said of his impressions of her when they'd met. ''A woman adrift who was clinging on to whatever she could find.'' '--Matthew Schneier
Read More: The Socialite on Epstein's Arm
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Introduced Epstein to Leslie Wexner after Epstein met and charmed Meister on a plane to Palm Beach, according to James Patterson's book Filthy Rich.
Read More: Author James Patterson on Jeffrey Epstein's 'Unbelievable' Crimes
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The former senator was appointed the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland by President Clinton and was an architect of the Good Friday Agreement. He called Epstein a ''friend,'' and the address book lists a dozen numbers for him under the heading ''Piper, Rudnick,'' the name of the Washington law firm where Mitchell was a partner.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Epstein's ''close friend since the early 1980s,'' according to the 2003 profile of Epstein written by Vicky Ward in Vanity Fair: ''Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime.''
Name found in Epstein's black book. Murdoch has two numbers '-- one New York, one California '-- listed in the address book.
The legendary patent troll turned impresario of molecular gastronomy dined at Epstein's home.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.The chief executive, secretary and treasurer, principal accounting officer, and principal financial officer of an insecticide-research company, Pagano even visited Epstein in jail.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. Filed in the address book under ''ex president of Colu.''
Name found in Epstein's black book. The billionaire invited 14 guests, including Epstein, Jimmy Buffett, and DNC co-chair Don Fowler, to his Palm Beach home for a Bill Clinton fund-raiser in 1995.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
With Lawrence Krauss and Steven Pinker. Photo: via Facebook
Pinker is one of the famous intellectuals most often linked to Epstein, but he says he flew on Epstein's private plane only once in 2002 and that he was involuntarily placed next to him for a picture at Lawrence Krauss's Origins Project's annual conference in 2014: ''If I had more wherewithal, I would not have indulged my friend in sitting with him. Despite what various friends and colleagues all said about what a genius he was, I found him tedious and distasteful. Even before I knew about the criminality, I found it irritating to talk to him, all the more so because the reason he was in the conversation was because he had given money to these various projects. He likes schmoozing with smart and intellectual people, but he couldn't really or had very little interest in exploring an issue. He'd wisecrack, change subjects, or get bored after a few seconds. He's a kibbutzer more than a serious intellectual.'' Nevertheless, Pinker supplied some linguistic expertise that his friend Alan Dershowitz used to defend Epstein during the 2008 trial. '--Matt Stieb
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.Forget for a moment the mural featuring Epstein in the middle of a prison yard complete with guards and barbed wire. Let's also forget the life-size doll hanging from a chandelier, and the chess set with figures of his staff as pieces to play with. Let's instead focus on the very lush Euro-Orientalist d(C)cor of Epstein's 21,000-square-foot seven-story Beaux-Arts mansion, decorated by none other than the late great Alberto Pinto, one of the world's top prestige interior designers. His clientele included princes, moguls, and wannabe princes, as captains of industry so frequently are, and Epstein clearly aspired to that provenance and history. He flew Pinto on his private plane, as he did other architects and designers (Jean-Michel Gathy, Ricardo Legorreta, and Peter Marino are also listed in Epstein's flight logs), and lived like a modern pasha in rooms lavished with money that bought custom-tooled gold leather walls (at least they were made to look like tooled-leather walls) and leopard-print upholstered armchairs in the dining room that appear to be covered in silk velvet. It was exactly the sort of project Pinto relished, flexing all the artisanal muscle that a designer of his stature can exercise when cushioning his client's home. '--Wendy Goodman
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Former business partner of Marc Rich (who was famously indicted for tax evasion and trading with Iran, before being even more famously pardoned by President Clinton), with whom he paired on deals in the Soviet Union before the fall of communism.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.Known to dine with Epstein in the early aughts.
Name found in Epstein's black book. The daughter-in-law of Lee Radziwill and a Real Housewife of New York.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Another Epstein dinner partner.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Zorro Ranch, Epstein's New Mexico property. Photo: Reuters/REUTERS
Epstein donated $50,000 to each of his gubernatorial campaigns. A spokeswoman for Richardson told the Albuquerque Journal that Richardson recalls visiting Epstein's New Mexico ranch only once, during his first run for governor in 2002.
Photographed with Epstein at the 1999 Edge Foundation Billionaires' Dinner, and twice met him at the TED conference.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. You learn things answering phones, and in the spring of 2005, answering Charlie Rose's phone at his PBS show, you would learn that his friend Jeffrey Epstein had some recommendations to make for whom Rose ought to hire as his next assistant. Written call logs from 2005 and 2006 show Epstein and his own assistant calling dozens of times, making plans for lunch and tea in Manhattan or to try to meet up in Paris. Epstein also called with a total of five women's names and phone numbers. One woman was described as ''world's most perfect assistant she used to work for Harvey Weinstein he's lucky if he can get her.'' Another entry reads, ''Jeffrey Epstein wants to talk to you before you call these two girls.'' A fourth woman shows up on the manifests of Epstein's jet, including on Bill Clinton's trip across Africa, and wound up working at the Clinton Foundation. Two former staffers remember another Epstein referral, a young woman not mentioned in the logs, who interned at the show. In all, Rose hired three (''Jeffrey Epstein from time to time recommended various candidates for open positions at the Charlie Rose Show,'' Rose's representative said in a statement, but said the ex-host only learned about Epstein's alleged abuse years later, when he pleaded guilty in Florida). When I called one of these women recently, she was stunned to learn she was one of many women Epstein recommended for the job. ''I was being offered up for abuse,'' said the woman, who was 22 at the time she worked for Rose. It helped her understand not only how her boss Rose '-- whom in 2017 she would accuse, along with 34 other adult women, of sexual harassment '-- had treated her, but also how the rest of the staff had seen her. And it helped her understand a grim version of networking among powerful men. '--Irin Carmon
Name found in Epstein's black book. The undisputed club queen of aughts New York, Sacco ran Lot 61 in Chelsea, which was famous for using fresh fruit in its drinks, and later Bungalow 8, which prided itself on discretion, the kind of place where celebrities could behave badly and not have to worry about appearing in ''Page Six.'' Sacco was a pioneer of marrying nightlife with concierge-style indulgences for the very rich: Her staff would get you whatever you needed: pizza delivery, peanut M&M's, a private flight to Miami leaving from Teterboro as soon as you could get there.
Visited Epstein in prison in 2008.
One of many politicians to receive donations from Epstein over the years. Epstein gave bipartisanly but not equally: Between 1990 and 2004, he gave more than $139,000 to Democrats and just over $18,000 to Republicans. Epstein also gave to a handful of politicians in New Mexico, where he'd purchase the Zorro Ranch from former governor Bruce King and where he was not required to register as a sex offender. In recent weeks, politicians including Schumer decided to donate an equal amount to charity.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Two California numbers are listed in the address book.
Name found in Epstein's black book. A brazen and relentless publicist of the old school, Siegal understands one thing well: ''Bringing people together. Everyone needs to feel that they belong.'' At least a certain kind of accomplished person, no matter, frankly, how they went about getting there (who was she to judge?). Known for her movie premieres and other guest-list-driven social events, she bragged that she ''ruined the Hamptons'' to Vanity Fair in a profile back in 1996.Publicity-party invites are an amoral game, driven by status and FOMO. Like everyone, she worked with Harvey Weinstein when he was an Oscar machine, the toast of the town. So you can't blame Siegal for including someone who already knew all the boldface power people. In 2008, in the teeth of the accusations against Epstein, he was spotted by a New York party reporter, ''unshaven, smiling that feline-monkey grin,'' at the Siegal-engineered screening of the HBO film Bernard and Doris at the Time Warner Center. But after prison, apparently Epstein needed her more than ever: In a Times story on how Manhattan's A-list refused to shun him, Siegal in particular was willing to help him (for free, apparently), ''using her gate-keeping powers to usher Mr. Epstein, a friend, into screenings and events.'' In 2010, she threw a dinner party at his Upper East Side townhouse for Prince Andrew, Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, and Woody Allen. She and Epstein might have had other reasons to get along: Siegal, who has just turned 72, is a self-invention as well, without a particularly pedigreed background. Also notable is the fact that, as she told Vanity Fair in 2012, ''my favorite way to travel'' to Cannes is ''on a friend's G5 from Teterboro to Nice.'' '--Carl Swanson
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.Flight logs record Slater taking a flight from Ghana to Nigeria in September 2002.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Conspiracy theorists looking through Epstein's black book will be disappointed that George Soros never appears '-- but they can find Peter.
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log. Flew with Bill Clinton to Africa (and, according to flight logs, the Azores) on Epstein's plane.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
Name found in Epstein's black book. Went on to star on Bravo's Ladies of London.
Obviously, lawyers do not share guilt for their clients' crimes. But it's striking that Kenneth Starr chose to join Jeffrey Epstein's defense team in 2007, after his moral fulminations against Bill Clinton's sexual perfidy. His obsessive pursuit of President Clinton made him a folk hero on the right, representing the defense of traditional sexual virtue and the notion that it was under assault by Bill Clinton and the liberal elite. His special-prosecutor exploits propelled him to the presidency of the conservative Baptist Baylor University. During his tenure, the football program engaged in a horrific pattern of sexual abuse that led to the dismissal of the football coach and the removal of Starr after an investigation found ''actions by University administrators that directly discouraged some complainants from reporting or participating in student conduct processes.''
It is perhaps coincidental, but Starr has tracked the broader conversion of the religious right from sexual shaming to sexual shamelessness. In an era when Donald Trump has exposed the hollowness of so many values conservatives allegedly hold dear, it is fitting that this Zelig of right-wing sexual hypocrisy has made yet another cameo. '--Jonathan Chait
Attended a dinner at Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse for Prince Andrew in 2010. ''That dinner was the first and last time I've seen him,'' Stephanopoulos said recently. ''It was a mistake to go.''
With Robert Trivers and Larry Summers at Harvard in 2004. Photo: Rick Friedman/Polaris
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
By the time the accusations of Epstein trafficking in girls surfaced, Larry Summers was out as Harvard's president, having alienated much of the faculty, including two black professors who jumped ship, and spitballing about women's biological inferiority in the sciences. But his tenure '-- 2001 to '06, bookended by serving as Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary and Barack Obama's director of the National Economic Council '-- overlapped with a high-water mark of Harvard's love affair with Epstein. Epstein, reads a story published in the Harvard Crimson in 2003, ''has found Harvard the perfect staging ground for his intellectual pursuits.'' Then-president Summers didn't comment, but Alan Dershowitz confided that Epstein ''speaks well of Larry, and I think he admires Larry's economic thinking.'' Lucky Larry, to be recognized by such an eminence.
Epstein, of course, was not an alumnus of Harvard (or anywhere), or a faculty member, but he was a donor. Asked by the Crimson in 2006 whether Epstein's $6.5 million donation should be returned, interim president Derek Bok referred to an earlier statement that Harvard has no ''obligation to investigate each donor and impose detailed moral standards.'' Summers imposed his own moral standards, hitching a ride on Epstein's plane. (A representative had no comment.) Even after Epstein registered as a sex offender, the Boston Globe reported, Summers's wife, Harvard English professor Elisa New, accepted Epstein's $110,000 donation to her PBS poetry show. '--Irin Carmon
Name found in Epstein's black book.Responsible for one of the biggest hits in Broadway history, The Lion King, and one of the biggest flops, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
In 2015, he defended Epstein, saying, ''By the time they're 14 or 15, they're like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don't see these acts as so heinous.'' This month, he called his past statement ''stupid and offensive.''
Name found in Epstein's black book.
At a party at Mar-a-Lago on November 1992. Photo: via NBC
There it was, yet another tape. This time, the now-president was filmed, in footage dredged up by NBC, in 1992 at Mar-a-Lago, hosting a party attended by a bevy of Buffalo Bills cheerleaders '-- and Epstein, from whom Trump has tried to distance himself since the arrest. He knew him only like anyone else in Palm Beach knew him, he said recently, although there were several entries for Trump in the black book, including a ''direct emergency contact,'' and 17 years ago Trump had boasted to this magazine that he'd known him forever and that he was a ''terrific guy.''
It's not just the denial in the face of evidence that, yes, he really did hang out with the guy that makes this set of film so classically Trumpian. The tape distills Trump to a certain essence: In this frame, he dances, snapping his fingers and spinning, surrounded by women '-- but profoundly alone, backing off and avoiding eye contact the second a woman moves in to dance with him. In another frame, he smiles with self-satisfaction as a crowd of women chants his name. Surrounded by a group of cheerleaders about to pose for a picture, he reaches around the waist of one and pulls her sharply in to him, then briskly cups her behind in a businesslike, joyless fashion while she reaches for her hair to maintain smiling composure. It's as if he thinks it's his vaguely grim duty, as an American man playing the campiest possible version of swinging billionaire bachelor, to grab the closest available body part.
And most telling is his sideline locker-room talk with Epstein, whom the camera catches entering the party, greeted warmly by Trump. Like teenagers, they stand at the edges of the dance floor, pointing out the women they like, laughing at private jokes about them, rating them as hot. Here, there is joy. You see in this moment two outer-borough boys who have successfully crashed the Manhattan Establishment, who have boorishly, clumsily used money to get everything they want '-- but whose desires have never moved beyond an adolescent vision of the world, of women, of men, of the good life, of who merits consideration and who can be used.
In middle age, Trump had enough self-control to understand that his worst instincts were best received by men who were an awful lot like him. Now, as an old man '-- the oldest teenager ever '-- Trump has lost even that filter. He's turned the whole country into his bunga-bunga party, made a Mar-a-Lago of the world stage, and divided us into Epsteins and cheerleaders '-- either co-conspirators who love the license his immaturity grants or else disposable collateral damage. '--Noreen Malone
Read More: NBC Obtained Trump-Epstein Footage After Trump Kissed an Anchor Without Consent
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
With Trump, Melania, and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. Photo: Davidoff Studios Photography/Getty Images
Epstein has reportedly bragged that he's the one who introduced Melania to her future husband. At the very least, the three have traveled together: She flew with Epstein on then-boyfriend Donald Trump's plane in 2000.
Read More: Remembering the Time Jeffrey Epstein Rode on Donald Trump's Plane
Name found in Epstein's black book and on Epstein's private jet log.>>Flew with Bill Clinton to Africa on Epstein's plane.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
Aerial detail of ''the temple'' on ''Pedophile Island.'' Photo: via Inside Edition
Who built the temple? Tuttle, a designer of luxury resorts by trade, renovated the main compound on Epstein's 70-acre private island in 2003. Sometime between 2009 and 2013, a ''temple'' appeared on the island: a large, boxy, blue-and-white-striped structure with a golden dome, surrounded by palm trees. In the days after Epstein's arrest, the temple became the object of fervent speculation online. It was the kind of irresistible conspiracy-bait that exemplifies the Epstein story: On the one hand, shouldn't it be enough that a mysteriously wealthy banker with connections to the globe's most powerful people was apparently operating a child sex-trafficking ring without dabbling in theories about occult island temples? On the other hand, though, once you've accepted that, why would occult island temples be so out of the question? On the edges, the Epstein saga could seem less like a news story than like a brutal, unreadable fairy tales. Or maybe it was a desire to take a story about financial power and social privilege colluding to protect a criminal predator and transform it into something more terrible and monumental. After weeks of speculation, the first eyewitness account revealed that what the ''temple'' contained wasn't a necromantic shrine but a gym, decorated with a framed photograph of a topless woman. '--Max Read
There are currently 475 level-three sex offenders registered in New York County, but in 2011, when an attorney from the office of Cy Vance, Manhattan DA, argued that Epstein's risk level should be reduced, Justice Ruth Pickholz responded, ''I have to tell you I am a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor's office do anything like this.'' Pickholz denied the request '-- Epstein's risk assessment put him 20 points above the required threshold for the highest level of offender '-- and the DA's office later reversed its request. Though there's no indication Vance and Epstein were friendly, his office has been criticized previously for declining to pursue sex-crimes charges against Harvey Weinstein that coincided with a donation from his attorneys (though Weinstein has since been charged by Vance's office) and fraud charges against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. '--Irin Carmon
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found in Epstein's black book.Retailing billionaire Leslie Wexner was Epstein's only known client, the man who transferred the rights to that famous townhouse to him for free in 2011, years after they were supposed to no longer be in contact. The relationship stretches back to the late 1980s, a time when Wexner's star was on the rise. A 1985 cover story for New York visited him in Columbus, Ohio, where his retail empire was built. Journalist Julie Baumgold described how he, not unlike Epstein, was a self-made man, addicted to self-improvement, how he didn't know how to pronounce La Grenouille correctly and wanted to have his picture taken at the Whitney, and noted that ''Wexner is what used to be known as a 'confirmed bachelor.''
'' (He later married and has four children.) Not long after that piece, he was introduced to Epstein, who had left Bear Stearns under a cloud and was broke. He and Wexner hit it off, and Epstein soon began managing Wexner's finances. Wexner's credibility lent plausibility to the notion that Epstein managed billions from his Caribbean-island redoubt. Associates of Wexner, who is now worth $6.6 billion, didn't understand the attraction. Soon after the men began working together, Epstein moved into Wexner's Upper East Side mansion. Wexner bought the seven-story townhouse in 1989 for $13.2 million but apparently lived there only for a few months. The title was transferred in 2011 to a Virgin Islands entity controlled by Epstein. It is now worth $56 million. '--Michelle Celarier and Carl Swanson
Read More: Who Is Les Wexner, and How Is He Connected to Jeffrey Epstein?
Name found in Epstein's black book.
Name found on Epstein's private jet log.
Zuckerman went into business with Epstein '-- briefly '-- in 2004, spending $25 million to invest in Radar, but he pulled the plug after just three issues. He first attempted a deal with Epstein in 2003, when he was part of a consortium with Michael Wolff, Donny Deutsch, Nelson Peltz, and Harvey Weinstein to buy New York Magazine.
*This article appears in the July 22, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
The High Society That Surrounded Jeffrey Epstein
(1) Partisangirl ð¸ð¾ on Twitter: "Turns out Ghilsine Maxwell, #Epstein's Mossad associate has been sexually blackmailing politicians since she was 23 years old. Seems her dear old dad pimped out his own daughter. https://t.co/nyNM9iuipQ" / Twitter
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 23:59
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Armageddon
SEE IT: Groups of jeering men douse NYPD cops with water; police unions slam 'reprehensible' actions and blame NY pols for 'anti-police rhetoric' - New York Daily News
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:03
Humiliating videos surfaced online Monday of groups of jeering punks dousing NYPD officers with water in separate incidents '-- and in one case, hitting a cop in the head with a bucket while trying to make an arrest.
In all the videos, the attacked officers refused to confront their tormentors.
The viral clips, which appear to have been shot during the city's recent heat wave, enraged NYPD cops and had the city's top police unions blaming New York politicians and their ''anti-police rhetoric'' for the officers' lack of response.
''Our anti-cop lawmakers have gotten their wish: the NYPD is now frozen,'' Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch fumed. ''It's not the fault of these police officers. It's the end result of the torrent of bad policies and anti-police rhetoric that has been streaming out of City Hall and Albany for years now.
''We are approaching the point of no return," Lynch said. ''Disorder controls the streets, and our elected leaders refuse to allow us to take them back. As police officers, we need to draw a line.''
Videos which have spread online show cops being splashed with water.
Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, called the videos ''horrific and dangerous'' and blamed Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner James O'Neill for the displays of ''lawless behavior and utter disregard for law enforcement.''
He also called for O'Neill to resign.
''The liquids in the buckets could just as easily have been bleach, gasoline, or some other toxic substance,'' Mullins said in a statement.
''The perpetrators of these crimes are emboldened by the Mayor, who has shown nothing but disdain and contempt for the police since January 2014, when he was sworn into his first term."
In one clip, cops in Brownsville, Brooklyn, walk away sheepishly as they're mocked and soaked with buckets of water. Police sources say the officers were responding to an unruly crowd on E. New York Ave. near Herzl St. and turned to leave when the group splashed them.
Another video shows several men tossing water at two officers while they try to arrest a man on the hood of their car on St. Nicholas Ave. at W. 115th St. in Harlem. At one point, a shirtless man throws an empty red bucket at the cops, hitting one officer in the back of the head.
In a third clip, a young woman is repeatedly soaked by a group of men carrying buckets as she tries to talk to officers sitting in a patrol SUV. The cops remain inside their vehicle as the men laugh.
After the videos surfaced, NYPD brass sent out a ''Finest Message'' memo to the department's cops, letting them know they don't have to take this behavior.
Though taunts and curses alone don't rise to the level of a crime or violation, officers can charge obstructing government administration, criminal tampering, harassment or disorderly conduct ''where an individual intentionally sprays or douses a member of service with water while performing their duties.'' If an officer is injured by a water spray or a thrown object, the attacker can be charged with felony assault.
Cops should be ready to describe specifically how the behavior affected their ability to do their jobs, the memo reads.
Mullins called the memo a ''feel-good'' missive instead of a strong message telling officers the department has their backs.
''They're giving you the sections of law that we all know ... It's weak. You're putting out a response re-iterating what the law is," Mullins said.
In a tweet Monday afternoon, NYPD Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan made no mention of public policy but denounced the men who attacked the cops in Harlem.
''The videos of cops being doused with water and having objects hurled at them as they made an arrest in #Harlem is reprehensible,'' he wrote. ''NYC's cops & communities have made remarkable progress '-- together '-- but EVERY New Yorker MUST show respect for our cops. They deserve nothing less.''
Mayor de Blasio piggy-backed on Monahan's statement, tweeting, ''Completely unacceptable. A video from the 28 Precinct shows people interfering in an arrest by throwing water and objects at officers. The NYPD kept New Yorkers safe through the heatwave and last night's outages. We won't tolerate this kind of disrespect. NYPD is investigating.''
De Blasio did not refer to the officers walking away from the mocking crowd in Brownsville, or the woman who was drenched while cops watched.
An NYPD lieutenant speculated that the cops '-- particularly the one doused with water when he was walking away '-- knew they would have to file a use of force report since it didn't appear that they were in the middle of a police action at the time.
''If these kids were injured when they were being arrested, then (Internal Affairs) would have to be involved,'' the lieutenant said. ''They probably weighed the risk and thought it was too much.
''But my dad was a cop, and in my father's day all of these guys would have been in the hospital," the lieutenant said. "The job's got these cops scared to take action.''
A police supervisor who saw the videos lauded the Harlem officers for ignoring the jeers, but said the other cops should have been disciplined ''for taking the abuse and doing nothing about it.''
An NYPD detective added that the department has become too soft in its effort to win back the trust and respect of various neighborhoods.
''These cops should have done something but they walked off like nothing happened,'' the supervisor said. "I'm seeing red right now.''
''If it happened to me, the paper would have had a story about a cop trying to shove a guy's head in a fire hydrant."
The Squad
David Duke praises Rep. Ilhan Omar - Washington Times
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 12:24
Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, has an ally of a new stripe in the furor over her use of anti-Semitic tropes regarding Israel and its American supporters '-- David Duke.
In a Thursday podcast at his site, the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard spoke out strongly in favor of the Muslim Congresswoman who has accused Jewish lawmakers of dual loyalty, attributed support for Israel to foreign money, and said Israel has ''hypnotized'' the world.
''By defiance to Z.O.G. Ilhan Omar is NOW the most important Member of the US Congress!'' Mr. Duke wrote on his site, using the acronym for ''Zionist Occupation Government,'' a term anti-Semites use to refer to the U.S. government as secretly controlled by Jews.
Mr. Duke and co-podcaster Eric Striker, according to the site, ''heaped praise on Ilhan Omar (D-New Somalia) for being the one person in Congress willing to notice AIPAC and the ''dual'' loyalty of many (((members of Congresss))).''
Triple brackets around names is another private language used by anti-Semites, meaning the named person is secretly Jewish or controlled by Jews.
The site illustrated the podcast with a picture of Ms. Omar next to a loving emoji with hearts in its eyes.
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Unhoused
Home is where the heart is - Home | Definition of Home by Merriam-Webster
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:01
\ ËhÅm \ 1 a : one's place of residence : domicile has been away from home for two weeks a place to call home b : house several homes for sale in the area 2 : the social unit formed by a family living together trying to make a good home for her children comes from a broken home
3 a : a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment also : the focus of one's domestic attention home is where the heart is
b : habitat the home of the kangaroo The island is home to many species of birds. 4 a : a place of origin salmon returning to their home to spawn also : one's own country having troubles at home and abroad
5 : an establishment providing residence and care for people with special needs homes for the elderly
6 : the objective in various games especially : home plate at home 1 : relaxed and comfortable : at ease felt completely at home on the stage
2 : in harmony with the surroundings
3 : on familiar ground : knowledgeable teachers at home in their subject fields 1 : to or at one's place of residence or home (see home entry 1 sense 1a ) told the dog to go home stayed home all day 2 a : to a final, closed, or ultimate position drive a nail home
b : to or at an ultimate objective (such as a goal or finish line) fired the puck home
3 : to a vital sensitive core the truth struck home
home free : out of jeopardy : in a comfortable position with respect to some objective
1 : of, relating to, or being a place of residence, place of origin, or base of operations the company's home office
2 : prepared, done, or designed for use in a home (see home entry 1) home remedies home cooking a home entertainment system 3 : operating or occurring in an area that is a headquarters or base of operations the home team home games
intransitive verb
1 : to go or return to one's place of residence or origin : to go or return home (see home entry 1) let us home 2 of an animal : to return accurately to one's native area of place of birth or origin from a distance : to return home The salmon will home to spawn.
3 : to move to or toward an objective by following a signal or landmark '-- usually used with on or in missiles homing in on a target mariners '... sought the dark spires of Oakland's redwoods to home on '-- J. W. Noble
4 : to proceed or direct attention toward an objective science is homing in on the mysterious human process '-- Sam Glucksberg
transitive verb
: to send to or provide with a home hidden pools and much wider creeks each of which homed its cranes '-- I. L. Idriess
\ Ëhy¼m , ËhÅm \ Sir Alec Douglas- 1903''1995 British prime minister (1963''64)
Adler: Want to stop people sleeping in public spaces? House them. - Opinion - Austin American-Statesman - Austin, TX
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:13
By Austin Mayor Steve AdlerMonday Jul 22, 2019 at 11:05 AM Jul 22, 2019 at 3:51 PM
Our homelessness challenge requires us to reintegrate vulnerable people who've lost their footing. People experiencing homelessness aren't ''others.'' They are us. That tumble off the last rung of the social ladder might have begun with a lost job, a rent hike, a drug problem, a mental health issue, a family schism, a divorce, or a perfect storm of several hitting at once. The roots of homelessness lie in human fragility '-- a condition we all share.
Yet, many see embracing others as we would have others embrace us as ignoring legitimate concerns about our public spaces. I reject the suggestion that this is a forced choice. We will succeed against homelessness when we are successful with both.
Our homelessness challenge is becoming more chronic and visible as Austin becomes more unaffordable and bedrolls are replaced with tents. We must do better, but how? We've had some success. We've achieved ''effective zero'' veteran homelessness and helped half the homeless children off our streets.
Unfortunately, a lot of what we've done, empowered by ordinances, has been merely to move people around '-- from here to there and back again. A business owner calls the police. The police tell the person to move along. The immediate concern is handled as the person and the challenge shift out of view '-- but only for the moment.
Still homeless, she moves to a different door, neighborhood or overpass. Along the way, she loses belongings and a piece of her remaining dignity and hope. You and I spend millions of taxpayer dollars playing this perverse game of moving people around and solving nothing.
I refuse to play any longer. We can actually address both our concern for people and our concern for our public spaces. There is one simple answer. Want to help people? House them. Want to stop people sleeping in public spaces? House them.
EDITORIAL: United effort needed to house Austin's homeless
Courts recognize this, too. Across the country, ordinances are being invalidated that outlaw people camping in public places if the government can't tell them where they should go instead.
To prevent camping, sitting and lying in certain locations, we need to provide better and safer places for people experiencing homelessness to be, with the appropriate social services. That's the deal, the quid pro quo, the social compact we must achieve. The council laid the groundwork in June to start the process in August of finding those better and safer places. This social compact is one piece of the comprehensive solution needed to actually address the challenge and stop relying on band-aids for symptoms.
We can do this. Austin's unhoused numbers are not overwhelming '-- about 2,200 people experience homelessness on any given night, a 4% increase from last year. Seattle, with 200,000 fewer people, has six times our number in their homeless population. The national average yearly increase was 5%; Dallas was at 9%. Los Angeles' homeless population increased 16% to almost 40,000 people.
TELL US ABOUT IT: Click here to submit a letter to the editor
During recent visits to Los Angeles and Seattle, Mayors Eric Garcetti and Jenny Durkan told me they wish their cities had acted more decisively and earlier. Their cities, they warned, relied too much on half-measures and ordinances that dealt with symptoms, not solutions. Sound familiar?
Achieving real results requires difficult decisions and community and political will. It won't be easy to prioritize needed spending on housing and wraparound services because of competing needs. It won't be easy to place housing because there will be opposition to any location. Our goal must be to address neighborhood concerns, rather than be stymied by them.
Let's also be clear. Police must be able to arrest and ticket anyone creating a public safety or health risk, and the City Council's June vote specifically preserved these tools. Shame on those who suggest otherwise.
I believe the recent community-wide conversation about the June council actions has sufficiently elevated the homelessness issue to forge the will to act meaningfully and decisively. We must take advantage of this moment.
The Purge
Facebook and Amazon lead tech lobbying spend amid antitrust scrutiny
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:06
Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg testifies during a US House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing about Facebook on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 11, 2018.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Facebook and Amazon each spent more than $4 million on lobbying in the second quarter of 2019 as antitrust regulators have taken steps to scrutinize Big Tech.
The two firms outspent their tech peers including Google, which was the biggest tech lobbying spender of 2018. Google reported $2.9 million in lobbying spend for the quarter, according to newly released lobbying disclosures, continuing a trend of reduced spending on such activity. Earlier this year, Google fired several of its biggest lobbying firms as it restructured its policy operations, The Wall Street Journal reported in June.
Facebook spent $4.1 million on lobbying activity in the second quarter of 2019, outspending almost all other tech firms. Amazon followed closely behind, spending just over $4 million, although its filing does not include lobbying spend for its cloud division, Amazon Web Services, which could put it in the lead.
The hefty spending comes as the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have begun to solidify their scrutiny of the nation's largest tech firms. Tech stocks stumbled in June when reports emerged claiming the two agencies divided oversight of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google parent company Alphabet. Tech lobbying spend for the quarter rivals traditional big spenders like Pfizer and Boeing, which spent $2.9 million and $3.9 million, respectively.
Tech lobbying spend for the quarter covered a wide range of issues for both companies. Amazon put resources toward issues related to immigration, trade policy and data privacy, for example, according to its filing. Facebook spent time on issues related to tech competition, online advertising, and artificial intelligence, among others, its filing stated.
Facebook and Amazon both put more cash toward lobbying in the quarter compared to the same period last year. Facebook spent just $3.7 million in lobbying activities in the second quarter of 2018, while Amazon spent $3.5 million.
Apple also upped its lobbying spend in the second quarter compared to last year, spending $1.8 million compared to $1.6 million during the same quarter in 2018. Microsoft spent $2.7 million on lobbying activity for the quarter, compared to $2.6 million in the second quarter of 2018.
Qualcomm was also among the top spenders in the quarter as it spoke up on trade issues and 5G, spending $1.9 million for the quarter.
'-- CNBC's Aditi Roy contributed to this report.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
WATCH: Why Facebook's business model is only now coming under fire
Support Animals
American Airlines flight attendant bitten by emotional support dog
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:27
CLOSE
After Delta Airlines cracked down on support animals on planes, we explain guidelines on when you can travel with one. Robert Lindeman
An American Airlines flight attendant was bitten by an emotional support dog on a flight from Dallas to North Carolina Monday, prompting union calls to further tighten rules on in-flight animals.
The incident occurred on American flight 3506 from Dallas-Fort Worth to Greensboro, North Carolina, an American Eagleflight operated by Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American. The plane was an Embraer 175, a regional jet.
The unnamed male flight attendant required five stitches on his left hand when he returned to Dallas, American spokesman Ross Feinstein said. The type of dog was not disclosed.
"What happened on yesterday's American Airlines flight is completely unacceptable and inexcusable,'' the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said in a statement late Tuesday.
The union, which represents Envoy flight attendants, said it has long supported the use of trained service animals to help passengers but said the industry needs standards for the less-defined category of emotional support animals. Critics have complained passengers are able to get instant certification for an emotional support animal, also called a comfort animal, online, and that many aren't properly trained.
"We need the (U.S.) Department of Transportation to take action now, so events like the one that happened yesterday do not continue to occur on our planes,'' the statement said. "This is fundamentally about maintaining safety, health and security for passengers and crew, while ensuring accessibility for those who need it.''
The DOT sought comments from travelers in 2018 and was flooded with replies, but so far no action has been taken.
Airlines have been tightening their policies in the wake of an increasing number of incidents involving in-flight animals and an overall increase in the number of pets brought on board. Passengers have tried to bring on a range of emotional support animals, including a peacock and a squirrel. American most recently revised its policies in March, limiting emotional support animals to cats and dogs and requiring a veterinary health form with vaccination details, its second revision in as many years.
In 2018, a child was bitten by an emotional support dog during boarding on a Southwest Airlines flight in Phoenix. In 2017, a 5-year-old girl was allegedly mauled by a pit bull in the gate area of an Alaska Airlines flight. The family sued the airline earlier this year. Also in 2017, an Alabama man was attacked by a veteran's emotional support animal on a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to San Diego. He sued the airline and the veteran earlier this year.
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Green New Deal
Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months - BBC News
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:33
Image copyright clintspencer Do you remember the good old days when we had "12 years to save the planet"?
Now it seems, there's a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030.
But today, observers recognise that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year.
The idea that 2020 is a firm deadline was eloquently addressed by one of the world's top climate scientists, speaking back in 2017.
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Media caption The jet stream drags tropical continental air from Africa over to Europe"The climate math is brutally clear: While the world can't be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and now director emeritus of the Potsdam Climate Institute.
The sense that the end of next year is the last chance saloon for climate change is becoming clearer all the time.
"I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival," said Prince Charles, speaking at a reception for Commonwealth foreign ministers recently.
So why are the next 18 months so important?The Prince was looking ahead to a series of critical UN meetings that are due to take place between now and the end of 2020.
Ever since a global climate agreement was signed in Paris in December 2015, negotiators have been consumed with arguing about the rulebook for the pact.
But under the terms of the deal, countries have also promised to improve their carbon-cutting plans by the end of next year.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Prince Charles has stressed how important the next 12 months are in tackling climate change One of the understated headlines in last year's IPCC report was that global emissions of carbon dioxide must peak by 2020 to keep the planet below 1.5C.
Current plans are nowhere near strong enough to keep temperatures below the so-called safe limit. Right now, we are heading towards 3C of heating by 2100 not 1.5.
As countries usually scope out their plans over five and 10 year timeframes, if the 45% carbon cut target by 2030 is to be met then the plans really need to be on the table by the end of 2020.
What are the steps?The first major hurdle will be the special climate summit called by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which will be held in New York on 23 September.
Mr Guterres has been clear that he only wants countries to come to the UN if they can make significant offers to improve their national carbon cutting plans.
This will be followed by COP25 in Santiago, Chile, where the most important achievement will likely be keeping the process moving forward.
But the really big moment will most likely be in the UK at COP26, which takes place at the end of 2020.
The UK government believes it can use the opportunity of COP26, in a post-Brexit world, to show that Britain can build the political will for progress, in the same way the French used their diplomatic muscle to make the Paris deal happen.
"If we succeed in our bid (to host COP26) then we will ensure we build on the Paris agreement and reflect the scientific evidence accumulating now that we need to go further and faster," said Environment Secretary Michael Gove, in what may have been his last major speech in the job.
"And we need at COP26 to ensure other countries are serious about their obligations and that means leading by example. Together we must take all the steps necessary to restrict global warming to at least 1.5C."
Reasons to be cheerful?Whether it's the evidence of heatwaves, or the influence of Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg, or the rise of Extinction Rebellion, there has been a marked change in public interest in stories about climate change and a hunger for solutions that people can put in place in their own lives.
People are demanding significant action, and politicians in many countries have woken up to these changes.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The rise of school strikers like Greta Thunberg has reflected growing interest in the climate question Ideas like the green new deal in the US, which might have seemed unfeasible a few years ago have gained real traction.
Some countries like the UK have gone even further and legislated for net zero emissions by 2050, the long-term goal that will keep temperatures down.
Prince Charles' sense that the next 18 months are critical is shared by some climate negotiators.
"Our group of small island developing states share Prince Charles's sense of the profound urgency for ambitious climate action," said ambassador Janine Felson from Belize who is the chief strategist for the Alliance of Small Island States group in the UN.
"All at once we are witness to a collective convergence of public mobilisation, worsening climatic impacts and dire scientific warnings that compel decisive climate leadership."
"Without question, 2020 is a hard deadline for that leadership to finally manifest itself."
Reasons to be fearful?With exquisite timing, the likely UK COP in 2020 could also be the moment the US finally pulls out of the Paris agreement.
But if Donald Trump doesn't prevail in the presidential election that position could change, with a democrat victor likely to reverse the decision.
Either step could have huge consequences for the climate fight.
Right now a number of countries seem keen to slow down progress. Last December the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia blocked the IPCC special report on 1.5C from UN talks.
Just a few weeks ago in Bonn, further objections from Saudi Arabia meant it was again dropped from the UN negotiations, much to annoyance of small island states and developing nations.
Image copyright Anadolu Agency Image caption The US and Saudi Arabia have joined forces to restrict the use of IPCC science reports in climate talks There will be significant pressure on the host country to ensure substantial progress. But if there's ongoing political turmoil around Brexit then the government may not have the bandwidth to unpick the multiple global challenges that climate change presents.
"If we cannot use that moment to accelerate ambition we will have no chance of getting to a 1.5 or 2C limit," said Prof Michael Jacobs, from the University of Sheffield, a former climate adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"Right now there's nothing like enough understanding of, or commitment to, this among leading countries. That's why the UN Secretary General is holding a summit in September.
"It's great that the COP might be in UK because we have a big civil society ecosystem and much higher climate awareness than in most other countries. But the movement here has barely started to think about how to apply sufficient pressure."
There's also been a strong warning shot from the UK's Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
At the launch of their review of progress made by the UK government on tackling climate change, the country was found not to be on track despite legislating for net zero emissions by 2050.
"The government must show it is serious about its legal obligations'...[its] credibility really is at stake here," said CCC chief executive Chris Stark.
"There is a window over the next 12-18 months to do something about this. If we don't see that, I fear the government will be embarrassed at COP26."
And it's not all about climate change
While the decisions taken on climate change in the next year or so will be critical, there are a number of other key gatherings on the environment that will shape the nature on preserving species and protecting our oceans in the coming decades.
Earlier this year a major study on the losses being felt across the natural world as result of broader human impacts caused a huge stir among governments.
The IPBES report showed that up to one million species could be lost in coming decades.
To address this, governments will meet in China next year to try to agree a deal that will protect creatures of all types.
The Convention on Biological Diversity is the UN body tasked with putting together a plan to protect nature up to 2030.
Next year's meeting could be a "Paris agreement" moment for the natural world. If agreement is found it's likely there will be an emphasis on sustainable farming and fishing. It will urge greater protection for species and a limit on deforestation.
Next year, the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea will also meet to negotiate a new global oceans treaty.
This has the potential to make a real difference, according to UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
"We have been convinced by the evidence of environmental degradation which occurs without adequate protection," he said in a speech last week.
"And that is why the United Kingdom has taken the lead in ensuring at least 30% of the ocean we are responsible for is protected by 2030 - a trebling of the present target. We will be asking all nations to sign up to that goal."
If all this comes to pass, the world might have a fighting chance of preserving our natural environment.
But the challenges are huge, the political involvement patchy.
So don't hold your breath!
Follow Matt on Twitter.
Clips
VIDEO - Jon Stewart-Backed 9/11 First Responders Bill Finally Passes The Senate - YouTube
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VIDEO - Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured in NYC Jail Cell After Possible Suicide Attempt: Sources - NBC New York
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 14:18
Epstein was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, sources said and investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happened By Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter and Sarah FitzpatrickPublished Jul 24, 2019 at 10:38 PM | Updated 35 minutes ago NEWSLETTERS Receive the latest local updates in your inboxWhat to KnowAccused pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a NYC jail, sources saidEpstein was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, sources said and investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happenedTwo sources question if Epstein tried to hang himself while a third source wondered if Epstein was trying to get a transfer Accused pedophile and wealthy Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a New York City jail, according to sources close to the investigation.
Epstein, who is being held in Metropolitan Correctional Center during his trial for conspiracy and sex trafficking, was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, two sources told News 4. Investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happened, saying details remain murky.
Two sources tell News 4 that Epstein may have tried to hang himself, while a third source cautioned that the injuries were not serious and questioned if Epstein might be using it as a way to get a transfer.
A fourth source said an assault has not been ruled out, and that another inmate was questioned. The inmate who investigators have talked to in Lower Manhattan facility has been identified as Nicholas Tartaglione, according to two sources. Tartaglione is a former police officer in Westchester County who was arrested in December 2016 and accused of killing four men in an alleged cocaine distribution conspiracy, then burying their bodies in his yard in Otisville in Orange County, according to court records.
Sources told News 4 investigators questioned Tartaglione, and the former cop claimed not to have seen anything and insisted he did not touch Epstein, sources said.
The attorney for Tartaglione denied all the claims that his client attacked the financier, saying his client and Epstein get along well. The attorney added Epstein was seen today and appears to be fine.
"They are in the same unit and doing well," said Bruce Barket, an attorney for Tartaglione. He said any claim that Tartaglione might have assaulted Epstein "is absolutely not true."
Barket said Tartaglione and Epstein have been complaining about conditions inside the MCC including flooding, rodents and bad food.
Epstein is now on suicide watch inside MCC, according to two sources. Attorneys for Epstein did not immediately return calls for comment.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons did not return calls and spokesmen for the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment.
No Bail for NYC Financier Jeff EpsteinMost recently in the sex trafficking case against Epstein, the wealthy financier had been denied bail on July 18 following a bombshell search-warrant revelation that Epstein had a fake passport and piles of cash and diamonds stashed in a safe inside his $77 million Manhattan home.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman cited risk of flight and danger to the community in his decision against Epstein, a registered sex offender and private-island owner who faces new federal charges of exploiting dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida in the early 2000s. That meant Epstein would remain behind bars pending trial (a date for the start of which has yet to be set).
Defense attorneys filed their notice of appeal to the bail ruling on Monday.
Epstein has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and sex trafficking charges brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. Wild's accusations are not part of that indictment. The financier's next court date is set for July 31.
VIDEO - NAACP crowd applauds Bernie Sanders explaining his opposition to slave reparations
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:51
| July 24, 2019 02:23 PM
S en. Bernie Sanders received applause from the NAACP convention after explaining to the audience why he was against slave reparations.
Moderator April Ryan asked the presidential hopeful why he was against "reparations for descendants of African slaves."
"Here's my fear about reparations, and I understand the issue, and I'm on board the legislation that will study the issue," the Vermont independent said at the Wednesday event. "Here's my fear: The Congress gives the African American community a $20,000 check, and says, 'Thank you, that took care of slavery, we don't have to worry about anything more.' I think that's wrong, I want to build, rebuild the distressed communities in America."
"Thank you for that explanation," Ryan said as the crowd applauded Sanders.
Sanders answer was a reiteration of the stance he took in March on reparations.
"I think that right now our job is to address the crises facing the American people in our communities, and I think there are better ways to do that than just writing out a check," he said on ABC's The View.
While the 77-year-old senator currently opposes slave reparations, Sanders said he supported Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's bill to make a commission to study the issue.
Sanders is currently tied for second at 15% in polling for the Democratic presidential primary, according to RealClearPolitics.
VIDEO - It's clear Mueller didn't write this report: Alan Dershowitz - YouTube
VIDEO - Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured in NYC Jail Cell After Possible Suicide Attempt: Sources
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:19
By Jonathan Dienst , Tom Winter and Sarah Fitzpatrick Published Jul 24, 2019 at 10:38 PM | Updated at 12:25 AM EDT on Jul 25, 2019
Accused pedophile and wealthy Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a New York City jail, according to sources close to the investigation.
Epstein, who is being held in Metropolitan Correctional Center during his trial for conspiracy and sex trafficking, was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, two sources told News 4. Investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happened, saying details remain murky.
Two sources tell News 4 that Epstein may have tried to hang himself, while a third source cautioned that the injuries were not serious and questioned if Epstein might be using it as a way to get a transfer.
A fourth source said an assault has not been ruled out, and that another inmate was questioned. The inmate who investigators have talked to in Lower Manhattan facility has been identified as Nicholas Tartaglione, according to two sources. Tartaglione is a former police officer in Westchester County who was arrested in December 2016 and accused of killing four men in an alleged cocaine distribution conspiracy, then burying their bodies in his yard in Otisville in Orange County, according to court records.
Sources told News 4 investigators questioned Tartaglione, and the former cop claimed not to have seen anything and insisted he did not touch Epstein, sources said.
The attorney for Tartaglione denied all the claims that his client attacked the financier, saying his client and Epstein get along well. The attorney added Epstein was seen today and appears to be fine.
Feds: Fake Passport, Diamonds Found in Epstein's NYC Safe"They are in the same unit and doing well," said Bruce Barket, an attorney for Tartaglione. He said any claim that Tartaglione might have assaulted Epstein "is absolutely not true."
Barket said Tartaglione and Epstein have been complaining about conditions inside the MCC including flooding, rodents and bad food.
Epstein is now on suicide watch inside MCC, according to two sources. Attorneys for Epstein did not immediately return calls for comment.
A judge in Manhattan on Thursday denied financier Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers' requests for bail in his federal sex case. Jonathan Dienst reports.
(Published Thursday, July 18, 2019)A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons did not return calls and spokesmen for the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Attorney's office declined to comment.
Most recently in the sex trafficking case against Epstein, the wealthy financier had been denied bail on July 18 following a bombshell search-warrant revelation that Epstein had a fake passport and piles of cash stashed in his safe.
U.S. District Judge Richard Berman cited risk of flight and danger to the community in his decision against Epstein, a registered sex offender and private-island owner who faces new federal charges of exploiting dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida in the early 2000s. That meant Epstein would remain behind bars pending trial (a date for the start of which has yet to be set).
Inside Epstein's Network, Layer Upon Layer to Protect the Boss Epstein attorneys filed their notice of appeal to the bail ruling on Monday.
Berman said prosecutors established a "preponderance" of evidence of Epstein being a flight risk, calling the fake Saudi passport "concerning,'' and said the government also established community danger by "clear and convincing evidence" '-- which led to his decision to keep the financier behind bars.
Epstein's lawyers had wanted him released on house arrest with electronic monitoring at his $77 million Manhattan mansion. They said he wouldn't run and was willing to pledge a fortune of at least $559 million as collateral.
The contents of a safe, including a pile of cash and diamonds, at the billionaire's Upper East Side townhouse may impact whether Epstein will be free on bail or not before his trial. NBC 4 New York's Gus Rosendale reports. (Published Monday, July 15, 2019)Berman described their proposed bail package as "irretrievably inadequate," saying, "I doubt any bail package can overcome his danger to the community."
Prosecutors, meanwhile, had argued evidence against Epstein was growing "stronger by the day" after several more women contacted them in recent days to say he abused them when they were underage.
Berman cited victims' testimony as having an impact on his decision, in addition to Epstein's alleged history of intimidating, threatening and paying off witnesses or other parties involved in the case.
Pa. School District Now Accepting $22K Offer to Cover Lunch BillsOne of the accusers he cited was Courtney Wild, who recently came forward and said Epstein started sexually abusing her when she was 14 in Palm Beach. She told reporters at a news conference in New York Tuesday that Epstein "will never stop sexually abusing children until he is in jail" and urged the judge to deny bail.
Berman also questioned whether Epstein has adhered to the requirements of being a registered sex offender, which he had to do as part of a plea deal with Florida prosecutors more than a decade ago.
Epstein has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and sex trafficking charges brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. Wild's accusations are not part of that indictment. The financier's next court date is set for July 31.
The victim says she came forward to make sure the wealthy financier won't get away with allegedly abusing young girls anymore. NBC 4 New York's Gus Rosendale reports.
(Published Tuesday, July 16, 2019)
VIDEO - William Barr on investigation into origins of Russia probe, conclusion Trump didn't obstruct justice | Fox News Video
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 11:12
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VIDEO - Jim Jordan Tears Mueller Apart - YouTube
VIDEO - Trump War Room on Twitter: "SHOCKING: Robert Mueller claims he's "not familiar" with Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that worked for Russian clients and produced the Steele Dossier for the Hillary Clinton campaign. https://t.co/iwo7R2PEme
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:48
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VIDEO - Trump War Room on Twitter: "WATCH: Robert Mueller refuses to answer questions about the Russians who met with the Democrat operatives at Fusion GPS. #MuellerHearing https://t.co/UZYVFyyk6b" / Twitter
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:47
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VIDEO - (1) Trump War Room on Twitter: "A key question the media will ignore: Why did Robert Mueller fail to charge Joseph Mifsud for lying to the FBI? https://t.co/Akh66VPqgM" / Twitter
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:47
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VIDEO - (1) Trump War Room on Twitter: "NBC's Chuck Todd on the #MuellerHearing: ''On optics, this was a disaster.'' https://t.co/OpiBzTzrqZ" / Twitter
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:46
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VIDEO - Squawk Box on Twitter: ""I can assure you I will personally not be loaded up on bitcoin" in 10 years, says Treasury Secretary Mnuchin #bitcoin https://t.co/0J5acWQwRO" / Twitter
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:36
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VIDEO - Montage: Confused-Looking Mueller Repeatedly Asks for Questions To Be Repeated :: Grabien News
Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:27
'Can you repeat the question, sir?'Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller frequently appeared confused during his much-anticipated Capitol Hill testimony Wednesday.
Mueller, who is often celebrated in the media for laser-like thinking, had to ask lawmakers to regularly repeat their questions, seemingly struggling to pay attention.
At other points, Mueller got confused about whether the members of Congress were asking him questions or if they were reading from his own report.
In just the first 90 minutes of the hearing, Mueller needed help understanding questions more than 10 times.
In one such exchange, Mueller '-- under questioning from Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) '-- asked: ''And where are you reading from on that?''
''I'm reading from my own question'' the lawmaker reminded him.
''Then can you repeat it?'' Mueller asked, eliciting laughter from the audience.
In another painful episode, Mueller had to ask Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee three times to clarify and restate her question.
Under questioning from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Mueller failed to follow a question that was merely 14 words long: ''Attorney #2 in the Inspector General's report and Strzok both worked on your team, didn't they?''
''Pardon me?'' Mueller replied. After Gaetz restated his question, Mueller replied: ''And the question was?''
To see more, check out the montage above.Editor's Note: We will be updating this post, and this montage, as the hearing progresses.
[View this montage on YouTube]
RELATED:
'-- WATCH LIVE: Robert Mueller Testifies on Capitol Hill About His Report
'-- Mueller: Evidence 'Did Not Establish' a Trump, Russia Conspiracy
'-- Mueller Admits Making up His Own Standard for 'Completely Exonerating' Target Under Intense Questioning
'-- MSNBC Panel on Mueller Testimony: 'Very Ineffective Defense of His Own Work'
'-- Supercut: Robert Mueller Will Not Be Answering Your Questions
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VIDEO - Ryan Knight ð½ on Twitter: ".@RepTedLieu: ''What we established today in the #MuellerHearings is that we have a felon sitting in the White House.'' #ImpeachTheFelon https://t.co/ny1v0xdt6z" / Twitter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:43
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VIDEO - Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter: "He apparently lied three times to the investigators and he wasn't charged??? WTF? You think anyone on the campaign would get that same privilege? https://t.co/z2hx7IisPI" / Twitter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:39
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VIDEO - No Agenda Shop on Twitter: "@geneeverett13 @adamcurry @NickDiPaolo @KatiePavlich @CassandraRules ð¤--ð¤--ð¤--ð'ºð'ºð'º https://t.co/Qeuelpgxvz" / Twitter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:37
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VIDEO - Praying Medic on Twitter: "25) The word exoneration was likely put in the Mueller report for the benefit of the media and members of Congress who want to impeach POTUS. https://t.co/AAUYrihVlH" / Twitter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 20:34
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VIDEO - Current Sr. Google Engineer Goes Public on Camera: Tech is "dangerous," "taking sides" - YouTube
VIDEO - Rep. Steven Smith ðºð¸ on Twitter: "@realDonaldTrump @EricHolder "Leakers"? I thought they were HACKERS. https://t.co/2SVggPTwDk" / Twitter
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 04:13
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VIDEO - BOOKER GOES BERSERK: Cory Says He'd Like to Punch 'Elderly' Donald Trump, Blames 'Testosterone' | Sean Hannity
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 03:52
Failing Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker took his attacks against the White House to new heights Monday night; saying he'd like to physically attack an ''Elderly'' Donald Trump due to ''testosterone.''
Sen. Cory Booker on Civility in Politics and Working with Mitch McConnell
''Donald Trump is a guy who you understand he hurts you, and my testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that,'' Booker told comedian Seth Meyers. ''This physically weak specimen.''
''You don't beat a bully like him fighting him on his tactics, on his terms, using his turf,'' Booker said. ''He's the body-shamer, he's the guy that tries to drag people in the gutter.''
''We will not beat Donald Trump by trying to be more like him, but by showing that we are not like him,'' he added. ''We are not weak morally. We are not weak mentally. We are a strong nation.''
According to insiders, Booker's campaign is rapidly running out of cash.
The packed Democratic presidential field will likely become less crowded in the coming weeks, with major campaigns of national candidates quickly running out of cash heading into the second televised debate.
''Among those with the highest burn rates, according to Federal Election Commission records, are New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney was also listed as having spent several million more than he raised, but the candidate has since said the numbers were misreported,'' reports Fox News.
''It's never a good sign,'' Larry Sabato, director of University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said. ''I'm not going to write them all off, let's see what happens in the second debate.''
''I would say that for O'Rourke, and several of the others really, a stellar debate performance is essential,'' Sabato said. ''No one could watch his campaign and say that Beto O'Rourke was doing really well. He's not. They expected a lot more than this.''
VIDEO - Hawley: 'Cosmopolitan Elite,' Globalization Have Left Middle Class Behind
Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:37
The ruling class's consensus in support of globalizing the American economy is working ''quite well'' for its architects, the ''cosmopolitan class,'' while leaving behind the ''great American middle,'' Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) says.During his keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference, Hawley slammed what he called the ''political consensus that reflects the interests not of the American middle, but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities'' that has been supported by both Republicans and Democrats for decades.
The goal of the ''cosmopolitan class,'' Hawley says, is mass globalization, not only of the American economy but of the American way of life, with efforts for ''closer and closer economic union, more immigration '... more trade on whatever terms'' to blur the ''boundaries between America and the rest of the world'' and eliminate land and economic borders.
''Call it the cosmopolitan consensus,'' Hawley said of the ruling class's globalist priorities.
Hawley continued:
The goal is to build a global consumer economy, one that will provide an endless supply of cheap goods, most of them made with cheap labor overseas, and funded by American dollars. [Emphasis added]
But it's about more than economics. According to the cosmopolitan consensus, globalization is a moral imperative. That's because our elites distrust patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers. [Emphasis added]
'...
The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith. They regard our inherited traditions as oppressive and our shared institutions'--like family and neighborhood and church'--as backwards. [Emphasis added]
The cultural and economic model that has been foisted on American citizens by the ruling ''aristocracy,'' Hawley said, is one entrenched in ''a progressive agenda of social liberation in tune with the priorities of their wealthy'' counterparts around the globe.
This ''cosmopolitan economy'' and culture has ''worked quite well'' for the ruling elite, but has left the American middle class behind with economic and social destruction, according to Hawley.
''Whom it has not served are the people whose labor sustains this nation,'' Hawley said. ''Whom it has not helped are the citizens whose sacrifices protect our republic. Whom it has not benefited is the great American middle. Because in this bargain, foreign competitors get to make the goods, and we just buy them. And then they buy up American companies with the profits.''
''And yes, in this bargain there are lots of jobs'--jobs on Wall Street, or in Hollywood, or in Silicon Valley,'' Hawley continued. ''Because the truth is, the cosmopolitan economy has made the cosmopolitan class an aristocracy. At the same time, it has encouraged multinational corporations to move jobs and assets overseas to chase the cheapest wages and pay the lowest taxes.''
This, Hawley said, has left middle America with ''flat wages, with lost jobs, with declining investment and declining opportunity'' that has translated into a social crisis for the working class, declining rates of marriage, declining birth rates, falling life expectancy, as well as an opioid and drug addiction epidemic.
Hawley said:
Is it any surprise that in the last half-century, as our leaders have pursued a program the American middle does not espouse, does not support, and does not benefit from, that public confidence in American government has collapsed? Is it any wonder that American voters regularly tells pollsters they feel unheard, disempowered and disrespected? [Emphasis added]
Because who now listens to the American middle? The cosmopolitan agenda has driven both Left and Right. The Left champions multiculturalism and degrades our common identity. The Right celebrates hyper-globalization and promises that the market will make everything right in the end, eventually '... perhaps. [Emphasis added]
In truth, neither political party has seemed much interested in the American middle for quite a long time. And neither has seemed much interested in the republic the middle sustains. [Emphasis added]
A comprehensive survey by Pew Research Center released in March reveals an overwhelming divide between the country's working and middle class and the ruling class, as well as their allies in the donor class.
About 73 percent of Americans said the gap between the rich and poor will continue to grow, a plurality of nearly 40 percent said the country will be weakened culturally due to a growing multicultural population, 44 percent said the standard of living for Americans by 2050 will be worse than today's standard, nearly half of the working class said automation will take their jobs in the future, and majorities across economic groups said the lower class is likely to increase and the middle class is set to decrease.
Cities like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. have become nearly unlivable for middle class Americans as income inequality booms, in part, due to historic levels of immigration to the U.S. that is driving up housing costs and rents.
For decades, free trade has helped gut working and middle class jobs and stripped whole middle American towns of their industries and livelihoods. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed and China was allowed to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), nearly five million American manufacturing jobs and 50,000 manufacturing facilities have been eliminated from the U.S. economy.
Meanwhile, the Washington, DC-imposed mass immigration policy '-- where more than 1.5 million mostly low-skilled foreign workers are admitted to the U.S. to compete against Americans every year '-- has been a boon to corporate executives, Wall Street, big business, and multinational conglomerates, as every one percent increase in the immigrant composition of an occupation's labor force reduces Americans' hourly wages by 0.4 percent. Every one percent increase in the immigrant workforce reduces Americans' overall wages by 0.8 percent.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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VIDEO - Scooter Companies Face $200K In Fines For E-Scooters Left Scattered After Comic-Con '' CBS Los Angeles
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:32
SAN DIEGO (CBSLA) '-- The Comic-Con party is over in San Diego, and now all electric scooters have to go home.
Clean-up crews were busy picking up more than 2,500 electric scooters left scattered across San Diego in the wake up the 50th annual Comic-Con, the biggest gathering of science fiction, fantasy and pop culture fans in the world.
Electric scooters were found blocking wheelchair ramps, sidewalks and busy downtown streets.
The city of San Diego is imposing a $65 fine for each abandoned scooter, all of which have been gathered up and are ready for their owners to come collect them. Scooter companies including Bird, Lime and Lyft face paying a collective $200,000 in fees for the discarded scooters.
The companies have until the end of July to pick up the scooters and pay the fines.
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VIDEO - Podcast Mixtape: Here's The Thing Live - YouTube
VIDEO - ð¬Dave on Twitter: "@JamesEBea @teafortillerman @adamcurry amazing Boris Johnson clip, ISO-evergreen" / Twitter
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:03
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VIDEO - Trans Activist Who Demanded Women Shave Male Genitalia Hangs Up When Challenged During Interview
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 15:44
The transgender activist who demanded female beauticians shave male genitalia hung up when challenged during a radio interview.
As we highlighted yesterday, Jessica Yaniv, who was born a man, has filed complaints with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against fifteen female aestheticians for their refusal to wax her male genitalia.
Having previously made predatory comments about women and girls in female changing rooms, Yaniv is also attempting to organize a topless swimming session for girls as young as 12 which parents will not be allowed to attend.
During an appearance on a radio show, Irish host Niall Boylan challenged Yaniv on why her rights as a trans person trumped those of women who do not wish to be exposed to or touch male genitalia.
Boylan made the point that Yaniv believing herself to be a woman despite being born a man was not a belief that other people should be forced to hold.
Jessica Yaniv was interviewed by Irish broadcaster Niall Boylan on the "wax my balls" human rights case. Yaniv told Boylan that women have no right to reject a trans person's demands to touch their scrotum. Yaniv hung up mid-interview. pic.twitter.com/5dbmz3vfEh
'-- Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 22, 2019
''I don't believe in God, I'm an atheist, you believe in God, I respect the fact that you believe in God and I respect your point of view and I respect your faith in God, that doesn't mean I have to believe in God,'' said Boylan.
The host charged that Yaniv was demanding women perform a service (shaving male genitalia) that they don't believe in.
''They don't want to handle a man's genitalia,'' said Boylan.
Yaniv argued that he was part of a protected class, to which Boylan responded, ''Are those women not protected who have a right to say no?''
''Those women should also be allowed to live their lives the way they wanna live their lives,'' said Boylan, to which Yaniv responded, ''But not when they discriminate against the rights of others.''
Boylan argued that it wasn't discrimination to not supply a service that includes waxing male genitalia.
Yaniv then hung up and the conversation was ended.
''Just hung up on an offensive radio interview in Ireland,'' Yaniv later tweeted. ''Don't tell me that I don't have anything when you don't know. Jesus.''
Just hung up on an offensive radio interview in Ireland. Don't tell me that I don't have anything when you don't know. Jesus. pic.twitter.com/85rJWwHsEt
'-- Jessica Yaniv (@trustednerd) July 22, 2019
''You started arguing with me about things you know nothing about,'' Yaniv added. ''So let me put it to you this way'...I'm female. Im a woman. Im not a man. Im as such entitled to EVERY service a female is entitled to and any such refusal is a violation of the BCHRC and CHRC.''
You started arguing with me about things you know nothing about. So let me put it to you this way'...I'm female. Im a woman. Im not a man. Im as such entitled to EVERY service a female is entitled to and any such refusal is a violation of the BCHRC and CHRC. https://t.co/L0VqPDgPF4
'-- Jessica Yaniv (@trustednerd) July 23, 2019
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VIDEO - Marianne Williamson: Peacebuilders Will Have a Seat At the Table of Power - YouTube
VIDEO - Sen. Hirono: Democrats Have a Hard Time "Connecting" With People Because Of "How Smart We Are" | Video | RealClearPolitics
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:46
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Democrats have a difficult time "connecting" with voters because of "how smart we are" that "we know so much." Hirono was interviewed by journalist Dahlia Lithwick at the 'Bend Towards Justice' conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday."We're really good at shoving out all the information that touch people here (points to head) but not here (points to heart)," Hirono said of Democrats.
"I've been saying it at all of our Senate Democratic retreats that we need to speak to the heart not in a manipulative way, not in a way that brings forth everybody's fears and resentments but truly to speak to the hearts so that people know that we're actually on their side," the Senator said.
"We have a really hard time doing that," Hirono lamented, "and one of the reasons it was told to me at one of our retreats was that we Democrats know so much, that is true. And we have kind of have to tell everyone how smart we are and so we have a tendency to be very left brain."
VIDEO - Former Democrat judge ordered to jail, dragged out of courtroom in Cincinnati | Fox News
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:41
A former juvenile court judge, a Democrat who took the bench after being declared the winner of a disputed 2010 election, was jailed Monday, and had to be taken out of the courtroom in Cincinnati, according to reports.
A deputy with her arms under the defendant's shoulders pulled Tracie Hunter across the courtroom after she went limp. Supporters stood and yelled in anger, and deputies intercepted a woman who tried to rush to her.
There were more demonstrations outside the Hamilton County Courthouse, and civil rights activists said there will be boycotts or other actions in protest.
VIDEO SHOWS TLAIB SHOUTING AT PRESIDENT TRUMP AS SECURITY DRAGS HER AWAY -- SOMEONE TELLS HER TO 'GET A JOB'
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker ordered her six-month jail sentence carried out after a contentious hearing in which he read from postcards with critical comments sent to his home in support of Hunter. He called them an apparent intimidation attempt that ''flat-out failed.''
Fox 19 reported that Dinkelacker read a letter from Prosecutor Joe Deters that stated Hunter has ''never once shown remorse.''
''She has been incredibly disrespectful to you and the justice system,'' wrote Deters.
The prosecutor also added in his letter that he ''believes she has some sort of medical condition."
Deters, a Republican, suggested she receive a medical evaluation, the news outlet reported.
A deputy with her arms under the defendant's shoulders pulled Tracie Hunter across the courtroom after she went limp. Supporters stood and yelled in anger, and deputies intercepted a woman who tried to rush to her. (Hamilton County Jail via AP)
Sheriff Jim Neil, a Democrat, said Monday afternoon that Hunter will be housed in the jail's medical facility, monitored by medical professionals and security staff.
''Ms. Hunter's well-being and safety will be my No. 1 priority,'' Neil said in a statement, adding that his staff will assess her eligibility for early-release programs.
Defense attorney David Singleton said Hunter already has endured years of uncertainty and lost her job and law license for what he called an unjust conviction and a sentence that is out of proportion.
''I can't believe Deters would ask for her to be evaluated. There is no issue whatsoever about her not being competent or understanding. Absolutely not,'' he said, as Fox 19 reported.
''She has gotten up each morning not knowing whether that was going to be the day she was going to jail,'' Hunter's attorney added. ''I know the impact that this has had on her life. We believe it would be profoundly unjust and unfair and a waste of taxpayer dollars to incarcerate her even for a minute."
He said she is needed to care for her elderly mother.
Hunter, 52, had gone to multiple courts to challenge her 2014 conviction and sentence on a felony count of unlawful interest in a public contract, which charged that she provided a confidential document to her brother when he faced a disciplinary hearing in his court job.
A federal judge in May rejected her bid to avoid jail.
She had stood trial on other counts that were dismissed after jurors couldn't agree on a verdict.
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Attorneys for Hunter have contended the case against her was political.
Deters also asked Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to consider commuting her sentence. However, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said Monday afternoon that the office hadn't received a request for clemency from Hunter herself, The Associated Press reported.
Click for more from Fox 19.
VIDEO - Kamala Harris on Twitter: "''I'm so hungry that I've woken up in the middle of the night with hunger. I'm too scared to ask the officials for any more food.'' It's horrific how this Administration treats children. https://t.co/UvwFnu2CAx
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:33
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VIDEO - Matt on Twitter: "Game over Bill.'... "
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 13:24
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VIDEO - CNN on Twitter: ""Dude, we are going to energize the country, we are going to get Brexit done!" said Boris Johnson as he closed out his victory speech -- to an audible mix of cheers and groans https://t.co/mqiMhy5mJV'... https://t.co/su0f3KMrOD"
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 12:55
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VIDEO - Mike on Twitter: "Erica Thomas hold a press conference about her incident at Publix, where Eric Sparkles approached her.'... "
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 04:00
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VIDEO - Jon Miller on Twitter: "Why aren't more people talking about the fact that Erica Thomas actually told HIM to go back!? She admits she told a Cuban man to "go back"... smh'... https://t.co/ovtIJFw9lG"
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 03:59
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VIDEO - CIA's "Facebook" Program Dramatically Cut Agency's Costs - YouTube
VIDEO - NASA ADMITS WE NEVER WENT TO THE MOON - YouTube
VIDEO - Michael Sheridan on Twitter: "ð'£ð'£ð'£ð'£ð'£BOMBS AWAY! ð'£ð'£ð'£ð'£ð'£ Thank you to @TheLastRefuge2 for pointing me to this unbelievable video. Ellen Ratner of Fox News tells us of her meeting with Julian Assange. Russia did not hack t
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:51
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VIDEO - Explosive: Georgia Rep. Erica Thomas confronts man accused of 'go back' comment mid-interview - YouTube
VIDEO - ERICA THOMAS GEORGIA: State representative says she was 'scared for her life' during Publix incident | WSB-TV
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:42
ATLANTA - An African American Georgia lawmaker says she was scared for her life during a confrontation with a man inside of a Cobb County grocery store.
State Rep. Erica Thomas, who represents District 39, recorded an emotional Facebook Live video detailing what she says happened at a Publix in Mableton on Friday.
In a news conference Monday, Thomas explained her version of the events between her and a man waiting in the "15 items of fewer" line.
Thomas said the man confronted her about the amount of items she had, and at one point, Thomas said Eric Sparkes told her to "go back where you came from."
Sparkes told Channel 2 Action News that he ever said anything racist but did admit to cursing at Thomas.
"I was embarrassed, and I was scared for my life," Thomas said in the news conference.
We'll show you the news conference and what the state representative plans to do next, on Channel 2 Action News starting at 4 p.m.
During the news conference, Thomas insisted that she is not changing her story despite interviews where she said, "I don't want to say he said, 'Go back to your country,' or 'Go back to where you came from.' But he was making those types of references is what I remember."
Sparkes sent a statement to Channel 2's Richard Elliot saying Thomas ''turned into a national case about race over night,'' and that he is exploring filing a defamation lawsuit.
The man State Rep. Erica Thomas encountered in a grocery store just sent me a statement reacting to her morning newser: ''Ms. Thomas has taken an innocuous situation that began on my part to be about being inconsiderate and turned into a national case about race over night....'' pic.twitter.com/LnMkQozABx
'-- Richard Elliot (@RElliotWSB) July 22, 2019Eric Sparkes' statement continues: ''Ms. Thomas accuses me of telling her to go back to whereever. Those words were never spoken. She backtracked slightly and now is changing her story. I am in the process of exploring with attorneys a defamation lawsuit against her.''
'-- Richard Elliot (@RElliotWSB) July 22, 2019(C) 2019 Cox Media Group.
VIDEO - Christian Jennings on Twitter: "Here's more of Eric Sparkes side. @itsericathomas says he's lying. She says a manager at Publix told her there is surveillance video, but that it doesn't have audio. @itsericathomas is pregnant and due in less
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:39
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