Best of the Web:


Sherlock

Best of the Web: The Jeffrey Epstein case: A rare opportunity to focus

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 03:07 UTC
Epstein/Trivers/Summers
© Screen Shot/Rick Friedman/PolarisJeffrey Epstein with Robert Trivers, Alan Dershowitz, Larry Summers, Harvard 2004
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, entrée into the extravagant celebrity soirées he hosted at his townhouse, or, possibly and harrowingly, a pound or two of female flesh.

~ From the New York Magazine article: Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling?
An honest assessment of the current state of American politics and society in general leaves little room for optimism regarding the public's ability to accurately diagnose, much less tackle, our fundamental issues at a root level. A primary reason for this state of affairs boils down to the ease with which the American public is divided against itself and conquered.

Though there are certain issues pretty much everyone can agree on, we simply aren't focusing our collective energy on them or creating the mass movements necessary to address them. Things such as systemic bipartisan corruption, the institutionalization of a two-tier justice system in which the wealthy and powerful are above the law, a broken economy that requires both parents to work and still barely make ends meet, and a military-industrial complex consumed with profits and imperial aggression not national defense. These are just a few of the many issues that should easily unite us against an entrenched power structure, but it is not happening. At least not yet.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Black Magic

Best of the Web: The Leftist lens: Words are 'violence,' and violence is 'justice'

James Lindsay
Quillette
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 01:15 UTC
painting stone thrower
Featured image: "Stones" (2003), by Joy Garnett (oil on canvas).
Responding to news that journalist Andy Ngo had been beaten by antifa protestors in Portland last month, a woman named Charlotte Clymer tweeted that "Ngo intentionally provokes people on the left to drive his content. Being attacked today on video taken by an actual journalist (because Ngo is definitely not) is the greatest thing that could have happened to his career. You know it. I know it. He knows it. We all know it. Violence is completely wrong, and I find it sad and weak to allow a sniveling weasel like Andy Ngo to get under one's skin like this, but I'm also not going to pretend this wasn't Ngo's goal from the start. I mean, let's cut the shit here. This is what they do."

Who is Charlotte Clymer? She is an activist who works at the Human Rights Campaign, America's "largest LGBTQ civil rights organization," which supposedly "envision[s] a world where LGBTQ people are ensured equality at home, at work [and] in every community." Andy Ngo, who has written for Quillette, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and other publications, happens to be gay. So this is where we are right now: A staffer for a human-rights organization dedicated to helping gay people is publicly cheering the beating of a gay man. This should raise an eyebrow.

Comment:

Read More...
Caesar

Best of the Web: Oliver Stone interviews Putin on War & Peace, why 'the Ukraine' is actually Russia, and the '2 percent factor'


Kremlin.ru
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 11:44 UTC
putin oliver stone
Vladimir Putin answered questions from American film director, screenwriter and producer Oliver Stone, parts of which were included in his new documentary, Revealing Ukraine. The interview was recorded on June 19, 2019 in the Kremlin. Here is the complete transcript...

Oliver Stone: So, I interviewed Mr Medvedchuk [leader of a Ukrainian opposition party]. It was in Monte Carlo. He gave us a very interesting interview. He gave us his view of the Ukraine. I gather that you're close with him.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I would not say that we are very close but we know each other well. He was President Kuchma's Chief of Staff, and it was in this capacity at the time that he asked me to take part in the christening of his daughter. According to Russian Orthodox tradition, you can't refuse such a request.

Oliver Stone: Oh, you cannot refuse it?

I thought it was a big honour for you to be the godfather of his daughter.

Vladimir Putin: It is always a great honour to be a godfather.

Oliver Stone: Well, how many children are you godfather to?

Vladimir Putin: I will not give a number but several people.

Oliver Stone: Wow. Is it like a hundred or three hundred?
Read More...
Play

Best of the Web: Oliver Stone's interviews with Russian and Italian media on new documentary 'Revealing Ukraine' (banned in Ukraine)


Vesti News
Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:18 UTC
oliver stone revealing ukraine
Putting an end to the war in Donbass and telling the truth about the events of 2014 in Ukraine. These were Oliver Stone's goals when he was making his new film. The movie was recently presented at a film festival in Italy, where it won an award. In an interview with Eugeny Popov of Russia 1 earlier this month, Oliver Stone shared the issues he reveals through the prism of the Ukrainian crisis.


Comment: As far as we know, Revealing Ukraine has since been aired on Russian TV channel Russia 1. When it becomes available for general release, we'll publish it on Sott.net.

Here's the official trailer:

And a link to its official website.

Stone is not actually the director of this documentary, though he managed the interviews. The director is a Ukrainian man, but that didn't stop the Ukies from firing a grenade launcher at the Ukrainian TV station that had been scheduled to air the documentary first. The station shelved its plan to air it, and that'll probably be the last it's heard of in Ukraine.

Such is the applicability of Western 'democracy' in that country.

Read More...
Newspaper

Best of the Web: What makes Iran strong enough to stand against a superpower like the USA?

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
khamenei khomeini
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s the Islamic Republic of Iran deployed the slogan "Karbala, Karbala we are coming" ( كربلا كربلا ما دارييم مياييم) to "defend the value of Islam". In Syria the battle cry "Zeinab shall not be abducted twice" helped mobilise Shia allies and rally thousands of men to fight the Sunni Takfiri of al-Qaeda and the "Islamic State" (ISIS). Today, despite the existential battle between Iran and the US, the "Islamic Republic" no longer uses religious slogans, but is instead rallying support on a national basis. Even Iranians who disagree with the present regime are supporting their country in the face of the aggressive posture of the US. Iranian pragmatists were disappointed by the US's unlawful revocation of the JCPOA nuclear deal. Severe sanctions are being imposed on the Iranian people because Trump ditched the deal to please Netanyahu and to spite his predecessor Obama. In the face of these sanctions, the Islamic Republic refuses to bow to US dictates. Unlike other Middle Eastern countries who willingly submit to Trump's blackmail and bullying, Iran says "NO" to the superpower. Why? How can Iran do what Saudi Arabia and other regional powers could do but will not?

Iran manufactures its own tanks, missiles,submarines and is a member of the global club of nuclear science capable countries.


Comment: And almost certainly already has a nuclear weapon or two. Not that that is really the crux of the matter. What concerns the Pentagon and the Israelis is that Iran has general military capability to defend its skies and exert regional influence. Whether of not it has 'The Bomb' is just the narrative vehicle justifying its isolation by the empire.


Comment: The only thing bullies with big sticks understand is their targets defending themselves with big sticks. All the rest is prose signifying nothing.
Strength Respects Strength Kalam
© quotefancy
The likely reason the US is second-guessing the wisdom of striking Iran directly is because the Iranians are heavily-armed with Russian military tech. This is an itinerary of just the stuff we know about:

Russia reinforces Iranian air defense, mobilizes advisers for support

Read More...
TV

Best of the Web: In season 3, Stranger Things' celebration of '80s pop culture becomes a political ideology

Noah Berlatsky
The Verge
Mon, 08 Jul 2019 09:54 UTC
We're fighting the old wars again to see if they come out better this time
Stranger Things Russia
Stranger Things have happened. Millions of Americans today, for example, believe that their president is a Russian Manchurian candidate...

Warning: spoilers ahead for season 3 of Stranger Things

The third season of Stranger Things, like the first two seasons, revels in the fun, funny, nostalgic detritus of 1980s pop culture. Much of the series's action is set in a mall, the center of teen life before the advent of iPhones and Amazon. In the shopping emporium, the kids buy colorful '80s clothes and watch movies like Back to the Future and George Romero's Day of the Dead. Glimpses of classic Dungeons & Dragons manuals and period issues of Penthouse are scattered around the screen. Running jokes include references to '80s teen sex symbol Phoebe Cates and the bombastically maudlin theme song for The Neverending Story. Most horror stories surprise the audience with terrifying monsters that leap from the shadows. Stranger Things is more invested in surprising viewers with a wave of nostalgic touchstones.

Season 3 is different from its predecessors, though, in that its retro impulses extend not just to pop culture, but to geopolitics. The season's plot is steeped in Cold War paranoia. The nostalgia for a threatened Russian invasion is as comforting and cutesy in its own way as references to New Coke or the X-Men. But it's also an indication that the obsession with the past can indicate not just ongoing affection, but ongoing anxiety. Sometimes, art looks back to the '80s because people love the '80s. And sometimes it looks back there because the '80s, like Stranger Things' Mind Flayer, has its tendrils in the brain of American culture and won't let go.

Comment: They're certainly part of the drama, and their gaps in awareness feed 'the monster', but Trump and Trump supporters are not 'the monster'.

To 'kill the Mind Flayer now' would require seeing the source(s) of the cultural schizophrenia sweeping across the US, which mostly emanates from the intelligentsia and 'elites' of US society, who are in the throes of highly destructive ideological possession - the results of which are all projected onto Russia, which is anti-ideology.

Read More...
SOTT Logo

Best of the Web: Virtue-signaling gone mad: Apple comes out with 72 different emojis for multiple permutations 'intersectional diversity'

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Thu, 18 Jul 2019 21:32 UTC
relationship emoji Apple
© AppleThe new relationship emoji being introduced by Apple for its iOS system.
If I wanted an emoji to look exactly like me, I'd just send a photograph. But then, unlike Apple and Google, I understand that they are a symbolic shorthand, not a racist tool of oppression that ignores my identity.

On Wednesday, World Emoji Day, the two California companies revealed their expanded repertoire of "newest designs that bring even more diversity to the keyboard."

Seventy-two new iOS emojis of couples holding hands, instead of a generic symbol. Thus, a blonde woman with a blond man, a blonde woman with a tan skinned man, a blonde woman with a light-skinned black man, a blonde woman with a dark-skinned black man, a dark-skinned black woman with a light-skinned black woman, a white man with a moustache with a white man without a moustache, and so on and on and on.
Read More...
Chess

Flashback Best of the Web: The political forces that led to the shootdown of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17

Kees van der Pijl
Unz Review
Mon, 09 Jul 2018 18:39 UTC
MH17
© Reuters/ Maxim Zmeyev
Four years ago, on 17 July 2014, in the midst of a civil war raging in eastern Ukraine, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was destroyed with all 298 passengers and crew. On 25 May last, the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) entrusted with the criminal investigation of the downing and composed of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and paradoxically, given its possible involvement, Ukraine, presented its second progress report. Like the first report in September 2016, it took the form of a press conference, with video animations supporting the investigation's findings. This time there was even less to report; the main conclusion was that elements from the Russian 53rd Buk missile brigade were the culprits, a claim already made by the London-based investigative group Bellingcat two years before. In February 2016 that assertion had still been dismissed as unfit for evidence by the Dutch chief prosecutor on the JIT, Fred Westerbeke, in a letter to victims' relatives. How can it possibly have become the core component of the case for the prosecution two years and two months later?

The JIT press conference was immediately followed by a formal declaration on the part of the Dutch and Australian governments that held Russia responsible. However, JIT member Malaysia dissociated itself from the accusation, whilst Belgium has remained silent. The obviously over-hasty conclusion, on the heels of the alleged Skripal nerve gas incident in Salisbury and the likewise contested Syrian government gas attack on jihadist positions in Douma, all point in the same direction: Putin's Russia must be kept under fire and there is no time to wait for a court verdict.
Read More...
Attention

Best of the Web: Finian Cunningham: The idiots driving the world to war

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Sun, 14 Jul 2019 17:51 UTC
BorisJohnsonJeremyHunt
© skynewsBoris Johnson • Jeremy Hunt
Like a person going up in an escalator while asserting they are going down, the British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has a bizarre way of trying to assure Iran that war is not on the cards.

Hunt, who is vying to become Britain's new prime minister, stated on camera that "he wants to de-escalate" the danger of a military confrontation with Iran over mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf. That was only days after he vowed to dramatically increase Britain's military spending and in particular, boost the country's naval firepower - citing Iran as the main threat to British commercial shipping interests.

It also follows news that London has ordered a second warship to patrol the Persian Gulf. Earlier this week a British Royal Navy frigate reportedly challenged Iranian military vessels (three small boats) after they allegedly tried to impede a British oil tanker entering the narrow Strait of Hormuz. Iran vehemently denied any such interference by its boats and claimed that Britain and the US were engaging in a provocation.

Given that the Pentagon has announced plans to send an international coalition of warships to the Gulf "over the next two weeks", under the guise of protecting commercial shipping from alleged Iranian threats, it must certainly look to Iran like the "war escalator" is speeding upwards.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Propaganda

Best of the Web: Cover-up? Italian police edit report on neo-Nazi group, suggesting fascists could have fought with Donbass rebels


RT
Tue, 16 Jul 2019 15:00 UTC
Italian screenshot
© Polizia di Stato website screenshot
Shortly after reputed Western media dramatically misquoted an Italian police statement on a huge missile seized from a neo-Nazi cell fighting for Kiev in eastern Ukraine, the original has been altered to become markedly vague.

Italian state police made big headlines across Europe when it reported of raids and arrests on a neo-Nazi underground organization taking place all over the country. An air-to-air missile was seized from an ultra-right group that also managed to stockpile Nazi memorabilia and dozens of military-issue firearms. Police said the group has fought on the side of the Ukrainian government forces in the breakaway eastern region of Donbass.

A host of Western media, such as Reuters, CNN, the Guardian, BBC and CBS, got the latter part profoundly wrong and reported that the busted gang was fighting alongside the Donbass rebels. RT reported on the embarrassing gaffe on Monday evening, but a day later, only BBC seems to have taken notice and altered their story.

Comment: Somebody's taking orders from beyond the Salvini-Conte government chain of command.

This weapons cache is a big find. Italy now joins Germany and France in the list of western European countries with heavily-armed networks of neo-Nazi and fascist (actual ones) groups - populated by people who regularly partake in opportunities to slaughter Russians and other untermensch.

And they operate all over Europe with near-impunity - including, as we've seen here thanks to the MSM's real-time 'auto-corrections', intensive media support.

Read More...