The Meaning of Epstein 251


The fascinating thing about what social media calls the Epstein “client list” is that not one of the people on it appears to be a client. I have seen nobody say “I knew Epstein because he managed my funds”. Nor does there seem to be any allegation that people paid him for his services.

So what was happening?

We often fall into the trap of attempting to provide a description of what really happened, and then defending every lacuna, when all we really have to do is point out how completely nuts the official story really is. The maddest and most extreme conspiracy theory in the Skripal saga is the official story. I don’t know precisely what was going down, but I know that it wasn’t that.

Similarly with Epstein. He is described as a “financier” but what did he ever finance? What was the source of his wealth?

Epstein’s assets were worth about US$600 million. They included not one but two separate Caribbean Islands and the very substantial properties built on them. They included very real mansions in New York and Palm Springs.

But you do not only have to look at the capital he accumulated – he did this while spending also at a colossal rate, with a lifestyle more usual in a billionaire than a millionaire. He had a very substantial executive staff, and his residences were fully staffed. He had bodyguards. He ran a private jet. He treated friends lavishly with hospitality and gifts, and maintained sex slaves. How did all this money come pouring in?

If you look at other such figures, like the highly entertaining Allen Stanford or the larger scale Bernie Madoff, you can see where the money came in. There is a bank or investment house situated in physical buildings, with real staff and lots of computers. There are very real aggrieved investors. Who are Epstein’s investors?

The standard answer appears to be Leslie Wexner of Victoria’s Secret, whose finances Epstein did manage at one stage and who reportedly once handed Epstein a limited power of attorney. But unless Epstein robbed Wexner of fully 10% of his net worth, that does not explain Epstein’s magic accession of wealth. Not until 2019, 32 years after Epstein started managing funds for Wexner and 11 years after he stopped, was any claim made by Wexner that Epstein had stolen funds, and then it appears very much a distancing move rather than a serious allegation. It is also worth noting that Wexner sold Epstein the New York mansion, he did not gift it as I have seen falsely reported.

A typical wealth management fee is 1%, generally substantially less when the sums managed for an individual account are very large. If we assess the annual costs of Epstein’s staff and lavish lifestyle at around $20,000,000 – which is very conservative – Epstein would have needed to be managing billions of dollars just to keep going, let alone accrue his own substantial capital.

There just is no evidence that Epstein did have a company managing those kind of funds. Where is the company? Where are the records? Who are the clients?

In the Assange case, we know that the CIA turned to gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson to organise and fund the spying on Julian in the Embassy through UC Global, a very dodgy Spanish-based security company which was also engaged in illegal activities in South America for the CIA (which are currently legally barred from disclosure).

Security services do operate through the world of shady businessmen. This is not conjecture: it is simple fact.

That Epstein was able, simply by lavish hospitality spending, to tempt many on his “client list” to enjoy his hospitality is hardly surprising. That the offer included sex with notably young girls appears inarguable. This obviously would increase Epstein’s influence on those who accepted the sex. I think it is wrong to consider this a blackmail scam – it is something more subtle than that: a shared bond of complicity, with an underlying frisson of danger.

The risk of exposure in such a relationship is of course mutual. It does not have to be discussed. If what Epstein was doing was as unsubtle as spoken blackmail, he would have been killed much earlier than he was, given some of those involved. Those who seriously threatened the reputations of the Clintons, for example, have been extraordinarily accident- and suicide-prone.

That the security services of both Israel and the United States assisted in funding this activity seems to me entirely likely, and a very simple explanation of the spending way beyond the apparent source of income. Epstein appears to have been an excellent “agent of influence”, well worth the money in the eyes of these states.

Here is a very simple question. How many of those powerful figures on the Epstein lists have ever tried to exert any influence to alleviate the tragic plight of the Palestinians, or acted against the interests of Israel?

Sometimes the greatest insight comes from the simplest of questions.

 

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251 thoughts on “The Meaning of Epstein

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  • Anthony

    Hillary Clinton, a figure Epstein was alleged to have had kompromat on, has been one of the most strident conduits of the Hamas “mass rape” yarn, belatedly spun to justify the ongoing holocaust. 

    The howling irony of course, unspoken by the mass media, is that Hillary’s own husband has raped far more women and under-age girls than Hamas ever have. 

    The woman is so compromised by Israel that she is willing to leave herself open to the most humiliating mockery imaginable.

  • Brian Case

    … and no mention of his right hand (wo)man – Ghislaine Maxwell, whose Father had incredible links to Israel and had a very special burial site only given to the very highest ranks.

      • Stevie Boy

        I’ve claimed it many times ;-), as have others …
        Disappearing in this modern, connected world is virtually impossible. Yet the Skripals have disappeared. Go figure.

        • John Main

          I figure they’ve covered their tracks and disappeared (with western state-sanctioned help) because Putin will instruct a new assassination attempt if their whereabouts become known.

          Occam’s razor.

          Even Sherlock Holmes knew the difference between “virtually impossible” and “impossible”.

          • Johnny Conspiranoid

            I think Skripal has retired to Russia to be with the rest of his family. He agreed to take part in an MI6 charade so he would be allowed to do that. Russian Gov. are keeping quiet in exchange for something. Otherwise why aren’t his family getting up a hue and cry about it?

    • Yuri K

      Let me try to be logical.

      Suppose, the Skripals are dead. Why hide this fact if it can be used to demonize Putin and Russia? There can only be one reason for this: it is obvious that for their death to be used in propaganda, the details of their death must be made public, and these details must be hidden because they will contradict the official version of the events.

      Suppose, the Skripals are alive. Why hide this fact? To protect them from Putin’s agents? Unlikely, cause it is unlikely that they were victims of Putin’s agents in the 1st place. And in such case they could simply say so. Running out of reasons, I have only one option left: the Skripals are alive and hidden from public because they can reveal something that contradicts the official version of events.

      So, dead or alive, the Skripals hide some secrets that contradict the official version of what had happened to them.

  • Fazal Majid

    Epstein, as a former math teacher, fancied himself as a patron of the sciences, which explains why AI pioneer Marvin Minsky and physicist Stephen Hawking found their way onto the list.

    The despicable Alan Dershowitz is a more interesting case, draw what conclusions you will.

    • will moon

      I would draw a distinction between the “useful idiots” like Dworking, Hawking, Pinker, and Chomsky, etc. and accused co-conspirators like Minsky. As far as I am aware many have no part except to “bulk up” the image of the alleged conspiracy. I read an article concerning one of Epstein’s last visits to a favoured uni dept. (circa 2015-2016) – the article claimed that the female university workers spoke to the young Eastern European women who accompanied him – to check they were not in a coercive or trafficked relationship, subtly of course but by then E’s reputation was preceding him and the operation had almost run it’s course and he had a limited shelf-life left.

  • Clark

    Trump is on Epstein’s flight passenger lists, and while everyone was distracted by the ‘insurrection’, he sent nuclear armed B52s from the USA to bomb Iran on behalf of Israel – their callsigns were GRIM11 and GRIM12. Funnily enough, I heard the two Stratotankers from Mildenhall going over my place on their way to their rendezvous at the Strait of Gibraltar. I suppose we can thanks the Centrists / “Deep State” for calling them back without incident; just not the right war, apparently. I found it a rather tense time until flight trackers confirmed that the last of the two was on its way home. Trump never did anything for the Palestinians, not that I can remember.

    • Clark

      I wrote:

      – “Trump […] sent nuclear armed B52s from the USA to bomb Iran on behalf of Israel…”

      Sorry, I should have written Israel and Saudi Arabia. Mustn’t single out poor little Israel; the B52s’ overture was a lap of honour over each.

        • Clark

          I can’t remember which forums I saw them on, I was scanning rather intensively, but a search on B52s and the callsigns should find you something. The flight tracking was just the usual flightradar24 type sites, some of which have history. The B52s were visible on the usual tracking sites because their transponders were on, from the USA to Israel to Saudi Arabia; they only went invisible by turning transponders off when they flew into the Persian Gulf.

          • Clark

            Caspar, I’ve been searching for GRIM11 and GRIM12 using Google and DuckDuckGo. I couldn’t find them. I tried including KC-135, Mildenhall, and Strait of Gibraltar in the search string. I’ve tried using Nitter’s search where I could narrow the date range to 06 to 08 of that January. The only possibly relevant hits I found were in Arabic, which I can’t read. Those flights flew, on that date, so make of that what you will.

    • AG

      Do you happen to know about a real simulation of a B-52 nuclear attack directed from GB on Kaliningrad January or Febr. 2022 which was allegedly the precedent for Putin´s first WMD warning? Swiss intelligence historian Jacques Baude mentioned this but it´s difficut to get in touch with him to get more info. (He alluded to this during a summer live panel in Germany but I was not there so could not ask.)

      • Clark

        I don’t. GRIM11 and GRIM12 were tracked on the flight tracking websites, and commented on on forums which follow such matters, with links to signs of Trump’s preceding manoeuvres and the political and legal repercussions on US Twitter feeds. I suppose you may be able to investigate it in a similar manner.

    • Funn3r

      Being on a list of passengers or in an address book doesn’t mean a lot. In the recent unsealed files on Jeffrey Epstein it has been confirmed that Donald Trump did not visit Epstein’s home or island and did not have contact with underage girls. Is it possible that you merely don’t like Trump and wish to discredit him? Or are you just here to advertise your horrid protest group.

      • will moon

        Funn3r, Epstein “inherited” the blackmail/political control operation from Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor -Cohn was not a nice guy, look him up.

        Trump’s break with Epstein, publicly, came after the latter’s conviction on a misdemeanour in Florida in 2006. Epstein’s plea deal, negotiated by Starr, Dershowitz et al, was a real sweetheart deal, clearing ALL co-conspirators of all wrong-doing. Secretary Acosta signed off on it – claiming that he was told “Epstein belonged to intelligence”. The chief investigating officer leading the police operation claimed in the Miami Herald that a cursory search for victims had revealed over 100 young girls who had been recruited by Maxwell and trafficked, going back to the nineties. Trump was frequently seen in the Maxwell/Epstein mileau prior to 2007, with many photographs revealing his relationship with these monsters. He is one of them. He flew on the predatory plane plenty

        Fly with crows – get shot with the crows.

      • Clark

        “Is it possible that you merely don’t like Trump and wish to discredit him?”

        Oh he’s done that all by himself, nothing I say will make much difference. I thought I made it clear I dislike his ‘opposition’ just as much. There’s no real opposition among the political class; they all go to each others’ parties. I’m for real, deliberative democracy; XR Demand 3 – Decide Together. You presumably prefer to choose between two warmongering hypocritical figureheads.

        Care to name anything Trump’s done for the Palestinians?

        • Clark

          Not conclusive, I know. There was also the former top military lawyer wheeled out of retirement; he posted to Twitter something like “we can’t tell you what the President is trying to do because it’s classified, but he has to be stopped”. Trump was taken aside and held incommunicado for a few hours, until the B52s started heading home. Commercial media gave the impression that this was to do with the unarmed, untrained bunch of Trump fans at the ‘insurrection’, but they’d already been dealt with.

          • Clark

            My personal speculation is that this is why Trump had all those classified documents in his apartment. You can’t just busk an operation like that, so his team went through the documents until they found an existing mission plan that they could turn to their purposes.

          • Clark

            I’ve just done a bit of searching, and there do seem to be some hints in the corporate media – the search engines all seem to default to the corporate media since the covid disinformation panic:

            https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/youre-gonna-have-a-fucking-war-mark-milleys-fight-to-stop-trump-from-striking-iran

            As the crisis with Trump unfolded, and the chairman’s worst-case fears about the President not accepting defeat seemed to come true, Milley repeatedly met in private with the Joint Chiefs. He told them to make sure there were no unlawful orders from Trump and not to carry out any such orders without calling him first—almost a conscious echo of the final days of Richard Nixon, when Nixon’s Defense Secretary, James Schlesinger, reportedly warned the military not to act on any orders from the White House to launch a nuclear strike without first checking with him or with the national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
            […]
            – In the months after the election, with Trump seemingly willing to do anything to stay in power, the subject of Iran was repeatedly raised in White House meetings with the President, and Milley repeatedly argued against a strike. Trump did not want a war, the chairman believed, but he kept pushing for a missile strike in response to various provocations against U.S. interests in the region. Milley, by statute the senior military adviser to the President, was worried that Trump might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified. Trump had a circle of Iran hawks around him and was close with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also urging the Administration to act against Iran after it was clear that Trump had lost the election. “If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war,” Milley would say.

            https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/11/garland-trump-mar-a-lago/

            Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Clark. Do you know who the dismissed people were? I’d imagine they’d be pretty upset about getting fired for refusing to carry out illegal orders to launch a nuclear strike against a non-nuclear country.

          • Clark

            Lapsed Agnostic, this “Thanks for your reply x”; it’s just a too easily searchable string, complete with a name appended for automated sorting. You’re making me nervous.

            Yes, they refused; that’s why they were replaced. And yes some of them seem very pissed off about that, but as I wrote before, “we can’t tell you what the President is trying to do because it’s classified”, so they’ll be limited in what they can say.

            And I’ve said enough. The military flight tracking forums etc. exist, and you can look at them as easily as I can. Trump respects no law – which reminds me a lot of Israel. And Epstein.

          • Clark

            And some were replaced in advance.

            “Trump respects no law”

            whereas the Centrists have a long enough reach to warp it to their ends, eg. Assange is still imprisoned – by the UK – with no legal justification that I can see. Yes it was started under Trump’s mob, but it was planned and set up before that and it continues after – like Guantanamo continued under Obama.

          • Clark

            Lapsed Agnostic, I’ve posted some suggestive quotes and links from sources officially sanitised for public consumption above. Nothing about the sackings, sorry.

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Clark and for the links. I’m willing to believe that Trump wanted to launch cruise missiles at targets in Iran, just like he did in Syria after the (supposed) chemical attack in Douma. What I’m not willing to believe is that he wanted to nuke Iran, and that nuclear-armed Buffs were a couple of hours away from doing so, especially as you haven’t provided any evidence to support that assertion.

            My usual way of starting replies to comments is nothing more than simple politeness. If people want to search for my previous comments, they’re free to do so – and they might even learn some things.

            Re: ‘You’re making me nervous’

            I’d advise cutting down on the weed.

          • glenn_nl

            LA: “Thanks for your reply ….”

            When someone has repeatedly asked you not to address their reply like this, yet you quite pointedly do so anyway, it suggests your comment isn’t motivated by politeness. Rather the opposite, actually.

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Glenn. When has Clark (or anybody else) requested that I abstain from beginning my replies with the customary etiquette, let alone repeatedly requested such?

          • glenn_nl

            LA: “When has Clark (or anybody else) requested that I abstain from beginning my replies with the customary etiquette […]”

            Just above, for instance. You replied to it. Don’t you remember?

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Glenn. Do you mean is this?

            ‘Lapsed Agnostic, this “Thanks for your reply x”; it’s just a too easily searchable string, complete with a name appended for automated sorting.’

            Not really a request is it.

          • glenn_nl

            LA: Perhaps you missed this one?

            From Clark : (6/1/24, 13:20)

            Lapsed Agnostic, would you be prepared to drop the “Thanks for your reply x” and not replace it with some other formulaic introduction? Not just with me; with everyone.

            Looks pretty much like a request to me.

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for you reply Glenn. Yep, missed that one. I don’t tend to re-visit comment threads on the fourth most recent blogposts since I do have other things to do. I checked that thread on the 5th (the day after my last comment) but Clark hadn’t replied at that point. In future, I will try not to write ‘Thanks for your reply Clark’ on replies to him, but I won’t do likewise for anyone else unless specifically requested. How’s about that then?

            All the best.

          • glenn_nl

            LA: “How’s about that then?”

            Sounds good to me! Some people become unhappy with being addressed in a certain way, I thought you were continuing to do so deliberately. Sorry for misjudging you.

            All the best to you, too.

          • will moon

            Oddly “how’s about that then” was one of J Savile’s catchphrases – a bit spooky eh?

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your good wishes, Glenn.

            Thanks for your reply Will. Jimmy Savile was not the only person to use that phrase – quite a few people in Leeds, where he was brought up and where I used to live, say it.

          • will moon

            Phew! I am so glad, makes sense. I have only ever heard him use it. For a moment I thought my fake memory syndrome/ mk ultra programming was being triggered

  • AG

    “Those who seriously threatened the reputations of the Clintons, for example, have been extraordinarily accident- and suicide-prone.”

    Who else should be added on such a Clinton “hit” list? (e.g. Seth Rich or Ambassador Stevens who was discussed in recent days here?)

    * * *

    p.s. I doubt there is much resemblance in fact, but the Epstein story on a superficial level does remind of sex clubs providing leverage over opponents like the one Berlin based Salon Kitty which cooperated with SS
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_Kitty

    the sex affair over French potential President Antoine Pinay, Ballets roses scandal
    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Ballets_roses

    (more important however was Pinay´s role in the anti-Soviet “Cercle Pinay” aka “Cercle Vioet” heavily involved in nuclear armament of France and unsuccessfully the FRG – later British MI-6 asset Brian Crozier was part of this too.)

    Or a particular Hotel in West Berlin I think by the name “West-Brücke” used by a West German crime boss and his gang who was working for Stasi to extract information from US military personnel and Western businessmen.

    The problem with media coverage today would be that reporters do not distinguish between Epstein and all these historical examples but instead toss them into the same bag of rainbow press nonsense.

    btw: Was there ever a political side to the Heidi Fleiss affair in Hollywood? I don´t think so.
    There is a good direct cinema documentary about her from the 1990s. But this has been long forgotten.

    (Wikipedia claims that Peter Seller´s daughter Victoria had been a busines associate of Fleiss in the 2000s. Doubt that I would have liked to have grown up being Sellers´ kid.)

      • AG

        thx !

        but does the text say where the money goes for real?
        Or where exactly is the corrupt element in all this?

        In financial conspiracies I sometimes get lost over the many details
        (and sometimes I think the reporters too get lost. Missing to point out to readers like me what the bottom-line is.)

        • Stevie Boy

          I’m beginning to get the impression that this is all about a giant laundermat for dirty money.
          Consider the huge sums of money involved in operations in: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. Now assume the CIA/Mossad ‘acquired’ some of that money illegally through, say, drugs, oil, historical artifacts and needed to launder it to enable them to fund black ops. What better than using Epstein, Wexnor, the Clinton Foundation, Ukraine, etc. as the means to clean the dirty money ?
          Just an idea.

    • John Cleary

      . . .
      And sure it keeps their honor clean
      The learned court believes
      They never gave a piece of plate
      To murderers or thieves
      They never told the ramping crowd
      To card a woman’s hide
      They never marked a man for death
      What fault of theirs he died?

      They only said intimidate
      And talked and went their way
      By God, the boys who did the work
      Were better men than they.

      — Rudyard Kipling, Cleared(1890)

      • AG

        sry if I misread it but this strikes me as kin to Sackville´s heroine in “A Family Matter”, Evelyn, who has more respect for the uncultured head of the family who is a proponent of the old brutish kind but honest unlike his children who claim to be cultured but can do so only living off the wealth the old man gathered through violent “uncultured” means. Which constantly reminds me of this US administration. Don´t know why… (Not to speak of Germans Green Party.)

  • Nota Tory Fanboy

    With regard to Epstein’s “aggrieved investors” and that “If what Epstein was doing was as unsubtle as spoken blackmail, he would have been killed much earlier than he was, given some of those involved”, what does the timing of the case against him – let alone his incarceration and death – tell us about those for whom he was no longer considered “an excellent “agent of influence”, well worth the money” ?

  • Clark

    I suppose my point above is that it’s vitally important not to take sides; politics is utterly infested with those addicted to risk; who else would want their finger on the nuclear button? Reluctant politicians like Jeremy Corbyn are a rarity.

    We need a politics without the self-selected. We need sortition:

    https://extinctionrebellion.uk/

    • Lysias

      After reading your first paragraph, I was about to say “Sortition”, but you’ve already said it for me.

      What a change from years ago, when I was a minority of one on this site urging sortition.

  • Eva Smagacz

    Every time I put serious money into my private account – say a family car value worth – (mind you, I haven’t done that for a while), here, in the UK, I get asked where the money came from – this is a money laundering regulation obligation that banks are a subject to. Is this not the case in US? Or is the rule simply waived for a high value clients?
    One way that allows one to avoid this sort of petty scrutiny is to run everything via business, and then use things, like houses, house management, jets, cars, security, entertainment expenses, as “perks & expenses” of a job of running the companies. Loans and petty cash can furnish you with cash.
    I wonder if anyone actually looked, forensically, at Epstein’s accounts? There appears to be a real reluctance to do so, despite, as Craig pointed out, that there would be a LOT to learn from Epstein’s cash inflows.
    Extraordinary connections can be gleaned by following the money – one such connection comes to mind: In June 2004 Guardian wrote
    “Significantly, [Omar] Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.
    It goes without saying that by following “evidence”, “reason” and “logic”, US then proceeded to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan (/sarcasm).
    Who knows, maybe insight into Epstein’s sources of funds will, by following “evidence”, “reason” and “logic”, result in US proceeding to go to war with, I don’t know, Iran? (/more sarcasm).

    • Stevie Boy

      “money laundering regulation obligation that banks are a subject to”. London is the acknowledged laundromat for washing dirty money. The big banks, like HSBC for example, are continually being fined (small amounts) for laundering dirty money. IMO, The takeaway is that, if a country makes a big noise about their regulations then it is just a cover for what they are in reality involved in.
      wrt Epstein’s finances, I believe he was ‘international’, such that his monies will be scattered all over the place and certainly not just in the USA. Tracing that money would be difficult even if TPTB wanted to trace it.

    • Townsman

      If you move a million dollars through the banking system, the banks want to know the source of funds. (It’s possible to accumulate a million by working hard, if you’re bright and well-educated).

      If you move 100 million dollars through the banking system, no questions because your friends are on the boards of the banks.

      • will moon

        Townsman, that’s nothing , where I live, possession of £500 in cash is enough to generate a money laundering charge.

        • Lapsed Agnostic

          In the UK, it is legal to carry unlimited amounts of cash on your person, provided you can show that it has been obtained legally and all due tax has been paid, Will.

        • will moon

          Where I live, in poor urban Britain, possession of £500 in cash is enough to generate a money laundering charge, l know several people who have faced this eventuality. You should try to get out more – there appears to be a gap, nay a yawning chasm, between your data and reality.

          As for legality, it is selective – for a Jimmy Saville performing “charity” on hundreds of children or an executive at HSBC laundering untold billions of drug profits they don’t have to worry about a thing – jail time? I think not but if you are poor or unimportant or you are not loved by the Royal Family or the Establishment, say like Craig Murray, you face lawfare, not the law – selective application of legal penalty.

          The key word is “Control”

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Will. In middle income, suburban Britain, landlords can evict you without a court order and throw your possessions into landfill (I know because it’s happened to me) – but they can’t do it legally. Assuming that they’re not laundering money, the people you know need to get better lawyers.

          • will moon

            To be fair, I heard this story whilst gossiping to several unrelated individuals, over several years, at least ten years ago. I chose to believe it because upto that point, I thought money laundering was a white collar crime involving lots of money and only heard it mentioned in relation to banks and big financial transactions – it was quite an unpleasant surprise to hear it had been applied to suspected street dealers who had been arrested with no drugs but several hundred pounds in cash. It may well have been an expediency by the CPS or whoever. Yet in view of the reality of international money laundering by banks and other actors, which in my opinion is a major threat to democracy and honest governance, it seems to be a measure both crass and taunting by people who really should know better

          • Lapsed Agnostic

            Thanks for your reply Will. Under the amended Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the police can seize cash amounts greater than £1000 if they reasonably believe that it has been obtained through criminal activity or will be used to fund criminal activity. However, if they want to keep it for more than 48 hours, they have to apply to a magistrates’ court. Should the application be granted, it can then be retained for up to two years, unless a conviction is subsequently obtained, upon which the cash is forfeit.

            In my view, by far the greatest threat to democracy in the West comes from far-right parties gaining power and then deciding to dispense with it, citing various dubious justifications. The way things is going, that will probably be a much more likely outcome in continental Europe than the UK.

  • Republicofscotland

    Good article Craig, it sounds as though Epstein was more of a facilitator, than a blackmailer as you suggest, getting extremely influential folk onside via his offering of sexual activities, those that partook in the activities would feel obliged not to speak out against whatever agenda Epstein’s handlers were pushing from time to time.

    We can get a glimpse into who travelled with Epstein or on his private jet by looking at the flight logs of his passenger jet, also known as the Lolita Express.

    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Lolita_Express/Passengers

    Also it looks like this man was suicided, did he play a similar role to Epstein?

    “Jean-Luc Brunel – nicknamed ‘The Phantom’ for his similarity to Epstein and ability to evade long sentences in European child abuse schemes[1]” – was a former model scout and right hand of Jeffrey Epstein.”

    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Jean-Luc_Brunel

  • Athanasius

    I’ve often wondered exactly what business — by which I mean LEGITIMATE business — Epstein was supposed to be in. In all the millions of words of newsprint about him, I’ve never come across anything describing his actual income sources.

  • Michael Droy

    Skripal: I guess we will never know now. The head of the official inquiry, Baroness Hallett has been taken off the case for a more urgent one. She is now head of the official Covid-19 cover up.

    • will moon

      A C Bruce maybe she was Epstein’s case officer? If so, she ran the operation. Assets, like Epstein, are expendable, principals less so – they tend to be ideologically motivated therefore re-usable. She has citizenship in four countries – Israel, France, Britain and America. In view of the treatment of Shamima Begum, losing her citizenship etc, there is a strong case for taking British citizenship away from Maxwell.

      There are claims emerging she was huge on Reddit, for over ten years, posting prolifically and earning more in-app points than anyone else, giving the account that has been associated with her special privileges to influence the flow of discourse on that platform

      Let us not forget the pictures of her and Kevin Spacey sitting on thrones at the Palace. Also the pictures of her and Epstein staying in the Queen’s private cabin at Balmoral – all very recent. After 2008 conviction of Epstein, she should have never been allowed near children or the Royal Family. Even though she was protected as a co-conspirator by the plea deal, it was very clear she was tainted in the grimmest fashion imaginable.

      There were many that alleged her father was a Mossad asset/agent. His burial on the Temple Mount attests to his status – he was amongst the highest in Israel. I would guess with such a pedigree, it seems likely she has long been an intelligence operative. In the Florida case, the chief investigating officer had found she had recruited most, if not all, of the victims, which he estimated at over a hundred girls in the central Florida area alone, but suspected he would have found many more, if he had been allowed to look further afield.

    • DunGroanin

      Well that is also a simple question too.

      I mean who exactly was Herr Hock? What did he do in the War? Where?
      How did he end up owning the main popular Labour-supporting newspaper in the U.K.
      Turned it into tabloid trash with a right hand called Alistair Campbell? Who in turn ended up running the Blaire Project from Millbank with Mandy?
      The Campbell who was the one to go identify the fish food Hock who fell off the yacht named after his daughter. The Campbell who handed the reigns of the Mirror to Morgan – one of the Murdoch owned and trained hoods from the Wapping stable?
      Campbell the sexer-upper of a dodgy dossier written by the MI6 hoodlums …
      Morgan of News International phone hackers …
      I really doubt that the Hock daughter in prison is the real one.
      The doppelgänger was prepped for a year whilst ‘hiding’ in some mansion in the countryside!
      The trial was attended by her siblings – proving she must have been the ‘real’ G’laine…
      It was all a show to make the whole thing go away.

      Looks like it hasn’t quite succeeded.

      Just needs someone to break cover and go public. If they can stay alive long enough.

      • will moon

        Was this the old Trans World Airlines slogan?

        “Hi, I’m Mandy from Millbank – fly me!”

        You may be right vis-a-vis identity and punishment – if David Copperfield, a mere conjuror, can make the Statue of Liberty disappear (and she is a very big girl!) well anything is possible in New York, if you have powerful magicians and you are willing to perform “Dark Magick”

        Apparently there is no magic in the world, just misdirection

        “Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception”

        “By deception we wage war”

  • Tom Welsh

    A good choice of photograph by Mr Murray. On inspection, it seems to me that in a sane society that photograph alone should have been sufficient to prevent either of the Clintons from ever being appointed to any office of trust.

    They look like wolves, but less honest.

  • Stevie Boy

    “That the security services of both Israel and the United States assisted in funding this activity seems to me entirely likely”
    Let’s not forget Mandelson and Blair’s involvements with Epstein. Wouldn’t that also imply that the security services of the UK also assisted in funding ? Heck, let’s just spread the net to the five eyes …

    • DunGroanin

      Our spooks are joined at the hip with their spooks – it’s spooky how enmeshed it all is.
      Lowkey recently showed it in a 10 minute video rap!

  • Robert

    I was never convinced about the “demise” of Epstein. My assumption at the time was that he had been sprung, and a body substituted.

    • glenn_nl

      I thought that, too. A billionaire could probably arrange a disappearance without too much trouble, finding a convenient body wouldn’t be hard for a crew of corrupt police and prison guards. The manner of his death was somewhat suspect, to say the least.

    • Lysias

      Epstein’s sudden return to the US shortly after his case was getting renewed attention in the media always struck me as peculiar. Why would he want to leave his French haven? Unless he knew that arrangements were being made to bury his case.

      What I would dearly like to know is just who told Acosta that Epstein belonged to intelligence, so he should not look further into the case.

      • will moon

        Lysias, when Acosta did not offer attribution in his mea culpa, he should have been treated as part of the.criminal conspiracy. A fundamental problem for society, if the trafficking of hundreds of young girls “belong to Intelligence” – a complete absence of democratic accountability., one amongst the many travesties of this story.

        Apparently Acosta was also involved in short-circuiting the victim’s statutory right to know the defendant’s punishment in the deal in Florida in 2006. He was the person who was legally responsible for the incredibly generous plea deal. To sidestep his moral duty to the victims, offering such nebulous justification is not enough.

  • Goose

    Qatar seems to share a similar untouchable status as that of Israel; accused of being the main funder of various Western covertly sponsored terror outfits plaguing the ME and beyond.
    Senior Qataris probably have dirt that would make US and UK citizens’ jaws drop open if ever made public. About Washington’s and London’s involvement in false flags and seemingly spontaneously emerging well-armed Sunni terror outfits like Islamic State. The whole US and UK involvement in the ME is a horrific dark mess if the late Robert Fisk’s reports were anywhere near accurate. The amount of effort put into smearing Fisk as a fantasist, upon his death by integrity initiative types, suggests they were.

    It’d take a new political system with new parties for the truth to emerge. One of the reasons the prospect of a Corbyn administration was such a nightmare for these people no doubt.

    • Coldish

      Goose (12.56, 7 Jan): I still wonder how much financial and propaganda support Qatar (and its protégé Al Jazeera) gave to the 2011 rebellion in eastern Libya which led to the UNSC’s imposition of a ‘no fly-zone’ (in practice a typical imperialist free-fire regime-change zone – shame on Russia for not vetoing it!) and the subsequent destruction of a formerly peaceful and functioning secular state. Perhaps Qatar has gone some way towards compensating for its role in that sordid episode by its recent mediation between Israel and Gaza – credit where it’s due.

  • Ian

    There is a useful summary here of what liitle is known about Epstein’s wealth and the various theories around it, including one of ‘intelligence services’.

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/how-did-jeffrey-epstein-make-his-fortune.html

    It is remarkable how he managed to cover his tracks, with no known trading or deal making in the finance industry after his early career. One strong candidate appears to be ponzi type schemes. But the overall conclusion is surely that offshore accounting enables anyone with the resources to hide and launder vast systems of money without any public scrutiny or accountability. And how many Epsteins are there hiding in plain sight, manipulating public opinion and politicians with their favours and threats? And how connected are they all? Koch Brothers, Adelson are only the ones we know about.

    • Stevie Boy

      Tory MPs are notorious for the use of offshore accounts, Eg: Sunak, Cameron; or placing their monies in their partners names to give themselves ‘plausible deniability’.
      If you support and represent the UK why wouldn’t you invest/deposit your wealth in the UK ?

  • harry law

    Dershowitz claimed that, because of the layout of the Palm Beach compound, he was unaware of what Epstein did in his private quarters and admits to receiving just one massage himself, from an older Russian woman named Olga. He has said he kept his underwear on and didn’t enjoy it, a claim met with derision most everywhere except within his family. Elon Dershowitz (son) recalled that years ago, a rough masseuse gave his father a shoulder injury.
    There we have it Mr Dershowitz’s only contact with underage girls was just one massage from an elderly Russian woman named Olga. This is believable if the Olga in question was 18 or 19 years of age, and he kept his underwear on (around his ankles).
    This derision can only come from deluded bigots and Anti Semites. /s
    Craig said “I think it is wrong to consider this a blackmail scam – it is something more subtle than that: a shared bond of complicity.”
    I don’t fully agree with Craig’s assessment here. In my opinion it was a blackmail scam, although a subtle one. All Epstein needed to convey to the “victims” was that they had been videotaped (which they were). Thereafter those marks/suckers were easy pickings.

  • Republicofscotland

    This is interesting.

    “Jeffrey Epstein made a $46 million donation to one of Wexner’s charities in 2008, the same year Epstein’s controversial plea deal was struck with State Prosecutors in Florida.”

    Who funded the payment, CIA? or other, and why did Epstein pay the money? and was/is the charity a front?

    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Les_Wexner

    Wexner claims Epstein did misappropriate funds, however that’s more than likely a cover story.

    I can’t find Wexner in Epstein’s Black Book list, but then again many names have been omitted.

    https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein/Black_book

  • harry law

    Where are the videos? We will probably never see them, containing as they probably do compromising images of the “great and the good”.including the notorious liar ‘Slick Willie ” I never had sex with that woman” Clinton.
    FBI Special Agent Kelly Maguire testified in 2019 that during the raid of Epstein’s residence, FBI agents found a safe with CDs, computer hard drives, money, jewelry and passports. During her testimony, Maguire said that FBI agents did not have a valid warrant to remove the evidence, so instead, they photographed them.
    A few days later, when they returned to obtain the evidence, it was gone, The Telegraph reported.
    Newsweek reached out to the FBI via email for comment. A number of other social media users brought up the disappearance of the evidence following the release of the documents this week. “Reminder that the FBI confiscated the Epstein tapes and has never returned them,” conservative commentator and senior editor at Human Events, Jack Posobiec wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

    “Three days after his death, the FBI raided Epstein’s private island and confiscated secretly recorded tapes supposedly of high profile clients and underage children. These tapes have never surfaced,” X user Juanita Broaddrick wrote, questioning FBI Director Christopher Wray.
    X user End Wokeness wrote: “On July 6, 2019 the FBI raided the Jeffrey Epstein townhouse in NYC. Agents found a safe filled with CDs, hard-drives, passports, and more. They found binders of CDs with explicit photos of his underage victims and presumably his clients too. We have not heard about them since.”

    Similarly, conservative radio host Buck Sexton wrote: “Epstein was running a blackmail operation based on surreptitious video, as evidenced from the extensive surveillance set ups in his various mansions. So where are the blackmail tapes/files? Ask the FBI about the ones they ‘lost’ in Manhattan.”
    https://www.newsweek.com/missing-jeffrey-epstein-tapes-fbi-1857766

  • Sandra Crawford

    Going Underground, with Afshin Rattansi: Ex-Israeli Spy Claims Jeffrey Epstein Blackmailed Politicians For Israel’s Mossad – Rumble, 13m 13s

    “We speak to alleged former Israeli spy Ari Ben Menashe about the case of Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex offender and American financier. He alleges Jeffrey Epstein used honeytrapping to blackmail politicians to be recruited to work for Israel’s Mossad, Jeffrey Epstein allegedly being introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell before the 1990s as mainstream media claims, Prince Andrew allegedly being used as a useful idiot by Jeffrey Epstein, former Israeli PM Ehud Barak’s relations with Jeffrey Epstein, why he believes Jeffrey Epstein didn’t commit suicide, who could have killed Robert Maxwell and more!”

  • AG

    Speaking of blackmail – The Duran and maybe on this blog (?), there was speculation that German chancellor Scholz is kept in check by the US regarding his silence about Nördstream via the Cum-Ex finance scandal.

    It has even been reported by papers that the government attempted to get the district attorney who did a good job investigating the case so far off Scholz’s back.

    However it was too obvious. So they changed the tactics and put an incompetent aide at her side due to “too much workload” – which too was ridiculous of course.

    But how would this US leverage work in detail?

    I am aware that in Assange’s case it was a simple phone call telling the Swedish officer in charge to arrest him despite any justification.

    But Assange is not the Chancellor. How do you keep a lid on that? Especially as dozens of local reporters are dying to break that story and watch Scholz go down.

    • Stevie Boy

      Speaking of blackmail – recall Boris Johnson’s many trips to Italy to partake in Bunga Bunga parties. Love to see those videos …

    • harry law

      The US National Sucurity Agency was accused of tapping Angel Merkel’s phones over a long period, it was suggessed that the NSA knew the colour of her knickers,or whether she was wearing any at all, what a revolting thought. This is what the US does with all its vassals.

    • Johnny Conspiranoid

      AG

      “as dozens of local reporters are dying to break that story and watch Scholz go down.”
      Are they though? Perhaps they’re keeping their heads down and hanging on to their cushy jobs.

      • AG

        Of course I am speculating.

        But from what I know about reporters outside legacy media omertas those people can be a nuissance.
        Much of what is worthwhile investigative reporting is grounded with those folks.

        The biggies only pick up on their stories later when its appears they have dug out enough so a real story can be sold.

        It was like that e.g. with the Neo-Nazi underground army case. Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR (state TV) and others made it big. But the real work was done by no-names with tiny budgets.

        And yes, the budget cuts in local political reporting indeed are a big issue.

        In Scholz´ case there are only a few witnesses I guess whose testimonies could bring about a break-through.

        Unless those speak out (think Howard Dean and Watergate) you have nothing in court.
        And thus no story either.

  • Xavi

    All the evidence suggests Epstein-Maxwell was indeed an Israeli blackmail op – bankrolled by Zionist bilionaires and the apartheid state itself. However none of the people on that list are types who would have needed to be threatened with being outed as paedophiles. The Gaza genocide has exposed quite how deeply ingrained anti-Palestinian racism is among Anglo-American elites, regardless of whether they have visited Epstein Island. Virtually no prominent person in Britain or the United States has expressed an objection to their governments abetting the mass murder of Palestinian women and children, let alone attended any of the vast Palestine solidarity demos. That’s big-name celebrities in any field, not just political and media elites. All of them seem very okay with what is being done. It has been extremely illuminating of the types we are expected to look up to and listen to.

  • candace

    Craig Murray’s ignorance of the American justice system and his repetition of accusations he evidently sees online — the Clintons had people killed by the dozens, Joe Biden is personally prosecuting of Donald Trump — does little for his credibility.

    What would happen if he restricted comments to subjects on which he’s well informed?

    • Crispa

      Craig Murray can speak for himself but I think he is pretty well informed about how the Espionage Act is being misused to persecute Julian Assange, which is a good reflection and just one example of a dysfunctional American justice system.

      • Nota Tory Fanboy

        Nevertheless, that doesn’t excuse Murray’s (by now) wanton ignorance about the legal details of Trump’s serial behaviour.

        It’s like I commented before: if Murray actually spent half the time paying attention to and informing his audience of the legal details in the cases against Trump that he spent doing so for his own case, he would realise that prosecution of Trump looks exactly like one of the biggest Mobsters finally being brought to book (whilst at the same time being granted special treatment that the ordinary member of the public would never receive for the same crimes, e.g. contempt of court, witness intimidation etc.).

        Still no blog comment from Murray about the 14th Amendment…

        • Lysias

          I am a retired lawyer for the U.S. federal government who intends to vote for Jill Stein, not Trump (because of the Gaza genocide) who tends to agree with Craig both on the Clintons-associated deaths and on Biden’s involvement in the indictments against Trump.

          • Nota Tory Fanboy

            Biden doesn’t need to interfere when Trump contradicts his own evidence, commits contempt of court and encourages witness intimidation live on air.

            Biden doesn’t need to interfere when the text of the 14th Amendment is so abundantly clear that it’s obvious it applies to Trump.

            A very insightful source that goes into the level of detail about Trump’s cases that Murray did in his own case, is Meidas Touch Network / Legal AF.

          • Nota Tory Fanboy

            Anyway, a news flash occurred earlier today that indicated Biden would suddenly be standing down from the 2024 Presidential race so you may just get your wish.

          • Lysias

            My wish? You mean the election of Jill Stein? Even I do not expect that or regard it as possible. I will vote for her just to express my abhorrence of genocide.

          • glenn_nl

            L: “. I will vote for [Jill Stein] just to express my abhorrence of genocide.”

            You granted her vanity candidature your vote in at least the last two elections too, as I recall.

            How well did that work out for you?

          • zoot

            Not a Tory Fanboy

            you clearly consider genocide to be a nothing crime, if you even consider it a crime at all.

          • Nota Tory Fanboy

            Zoot, that’s absolute nonsense. It’s perfectly clear, as Murray has explained over numerous posts, that the Israeli Government and Military have been perpetrating a slow genocide for decades, one which has been massively ramped up since the terrorist attack of October 7th.

            It is also perfectly clear that the actions I described Trump having undertaken, he has indeed done.

            Dislike of Trump’s actions does not mean I dislike the actions of the Israeli State, the US or the UK any the less. They should all be tried at the ICC.
            I can only assume your jumping to the conclusion you did means you’re a bad faith actor.

            P.S. For the avoidance of any further doubt, I’m also pro Scottish Independence and hate the Tory Party.

          • Nota Tory Fanboy

            Also Zoot, if you’re not a bad faith actor and you support Trump but not Israeli State behaviour, then I’m curious what your thoughts are on Trump being the POTUS who actually moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognised it as the capital of Israel?

          • Nota Tory Fanboy

            Oh and just to cover the whole gamut, no I don’t like Russia or China’s actions either and believe they should be joining the US, UK and Israel at the ICC.

      • dewitt

        Trump is not being prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

        If Craig really believes — without reading the indictments — that the prosecution of Trump is political, he might want to refer to this timeline of attempts by Trump to subvert the election results (constituting multiple crimes).

        https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/08/us/trump-2020-overturn-timeline.html

        Recall that hapless Al Gore, who actually won the popular vote nationwide by more than 500,000, not only accepted an improper intervention of the [Republican] Supreme Court to halt a vote count (in a state whose governor was the brother of the Republican candidate), which would have decided the race in Gore’s favor, but urged his supporters to do the same. And of course they did. Similarly, Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 and conceded to Trump without a fight, with a Democrat (Obama) in the WH at the time who might have done what Trump attempted to do. But of course he didn’t.

        • Nota Tory Fanboy

          “Trump is not being prosecuted under the Espionage Act.”

          The irony is that in all probability he really should be.

  • Crispa

    I think the “meaning of Epstein” is that the wheels of justice turn slowly, stickily or not at all when it is not in the state’s interests to go any faster or to greater lengths than it wants to. As the article and comments clearly show there is a lot more to the Epstein case than the media presents, which is as a sex scandal involving celebrities and with which it can titillate the general public. The governments involved will certainly not allow their media to dig any deeper.
    In this regard it is noteworthy that the “media” (actually Guardian, the BBC, ITN, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Times and Sky News), are legally collectively represented (by a Mr Bunting) at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry chaired now by a retired judge Lord Hughes, who does not like to be referred to as “chair”.
    His job would seem to be to work out on behalf of his clients what they might legally publish from the available evidence once the thousands of government and police documents that might be disclosed in open or secret sessions are carefully vetted and redacted. All this is taking years before the inquiry proper can even begin.
    In short neither the USA government in the case of Epstein, as with so many other issues, nor the UK government in the case of Skripal want us to know what really happened. The USA government is probably off the hook in relation to the compensation claims from Epstein’s victims, which I guess are being pursued through private litigation. This will not be the case with the UK government which is facing a substantial claim for damages because of its negligence in the case of Dawn Sturgess, and which is being made by Michael Mansfield and his team. However I think we can be guaranteed that this side of it will drag on an on and on with all the obfuscation that will be involved.

  • Lapsed Agnostic

    J. Epstein & Co’s main (possibly only) client was Leslie Wexner. In 1991, Wexner gave Epstein pretty much full power of attorney over his financial affairs, which is a very odd thing for a reasonably healthy fifty-something to be giving to an unrelated thirty-something man that he’d only known for three or four years, if you ask me – I’d sooner give someone 10% of my net worth (such as it is) any day of the week. This power was only rescinded in 2007, after Epstein had been charged with procuring a minor for prostitution.

    For an idea of what Epstein was doing during this time, he was buying McMansions in Ohio for $3.5 million, and then getting one of Wexner’s companies to buy them off him a few years later for $8 million (despite two decades of house price inflation across the Western world, the property isn’t worth that much now), and getting some of Wexner’s charitable foundations to donate $21 million to a charity he’d set up called COUQ (whose only beneficiary I’d imagine was one Jeffrey Epstein). Once these – and no doubt sundry other – scams had delivered the goods, he could easily have been worth half a billion (minus property) which, invested in a simple mutual fund tracking the S&P 500, could have easily yielded an average net income of more than $25 million a year, enough to pay hundreds of people to do various things for him.

  • David Carraher

    You raised many excellent questions about the origins of Epstein’s wealth, including the following: ” How many of those on powerful figures on the Epstein lists have ever tried to exert any influence to alleviate the tragic plight of the Palestinians, or acted against the interests of Israel?”.

    However, I would like to point to one exception to the association you alluded to. Noam Chomsky has widely declared his support for the Palestinian people and denounced the current government of Israel.
    See, for instance,
    https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/9/qa-noam-chomsky-on-palestine-israel-and-the-state-of-the-world

    • Lysias

      Chomsky has expressed disinterest in both who was behind the JFK assassination and who was behind 9/11. He is controlled opposition.

      • glenn_nl

        Nonsense, he deals with established and inarguable facts, not in wild speculation asserted as if it were fact. Shame that more people can’t tell the difference.

      • AG

        Chomsky’s core argument was entirely practical: He argued if there is no way to find out who did it why waste giant amounts of time and resources on merely speculating about such a question, and furthermore on the assassination of a politician who was a major criminal and aggressive war-monger.

        It would make much more sense to instead do something meaningful like getting organized or teaching. It’s not that one big event. It’s the many small everyday entities that usually don’t make it into the papers but that eventually matter. More often than not they never get the credit they would deserve. That’s also why he was against personalized narratives (like a Chomsky biopic e.g.)

      • Clark

        Oh for goodness’ sake; we’re all “controlled opposition”. I bet you’re using proprietary software to comment at this site; it is controlled by the corporation that “sold” (rent) it to you. People comment under pseudonyms because they’d be sacked and deprived of their income; they daren’t stand up and be counted, they’re controlled. Everything we buy is controlled. Damn system controls everything.

        Chomsky opposes far more and far more effectively than most people do. He’s not taking orders from some hidden puppetmaster. And he does it publicly, under his own name.

    • Clark

      “How many of those on powerful figures on the Epstein lists…”

      Chomsky isn’t powerful. Neither were “AI pioneer Marvin Minsky and physicist Stephen Hawking” (above).

      But they are all famous and intelligent, so they served to spice the party. And then, should they say anything inconvenient, their or their associates’ reputations can be tarnished using guilt by association, as has happened to Richard Stallman, for defending Minsky. And some will even dismiss them as “controlled opposition” :-/

      • Clark

        No wonder a journalist friend working in a major British TV news studio told us:

        – ‘You must see the reaction in a newsroom when one mentions Chomsky or Pilger. They run the other way, and I can see they are afraid by the look on their faces. Fact is that once you understand and admit what you are doing, you can’t continue with it. When I mentioned Chomsky, one person commented, “Oh, he’s way out there.” “Way out where?” I asked.’ (Email to Media Lens, 8 July 2005)

        https://www.medialens.org/2024/john-pilger-a-majority-of-one/

        Moderation rules require me to add my thoughts. My thought in this case is that I have nothing to add.

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