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    • 275 Shares80 Views

      in US Politics

      Never forget Epstein’s little helpers – the powerful men who knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway | Marina Hyde

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      I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghoulsLike a lot of women, I do vaguely care about the latest political implosion of Peter Mandelson – but I think we’re all massively more obsessed with the fact that there really was a network of incredibly famous and powerful men trying to help a known ex-con minimise and wave away his underage sex crimes. Amirite, ladies? Sure, I’m crying my eyes out about some Gordon Brown adviser having his asset-sale memo forwarded in 2009 … but at the same time I’m a whole lot more concerned about the actual Sex Bilderberg. Which, even now, our eyes seem to keep being conveniently dragged away from. Can we refocus?We are, naturally, talking about the Jeffrey Epstein files. Since the latest lot dropped, I’ve been collating the emails from extremely famous men who actively sought to help the since-deceased underage sex trafficker trivialise his crimes in the years after his jail release in 2009. Richard Branson, Noam Chomsky, Steve Bannon, Mandelson, Andrew (obviously) – all of these men offer strategic advice, or media training, or chummy solidarity. Or, in the case of Chomsky, all of the above plus a drive-by on the notion of female victimhood. According to text signed under his first name that Epstein sent to a lawyer and publicist in February 2019, months after the Miami Herald had run an explosive series of articles laying out the scale of Epstein’s serial underage sexual abuse and the perversion of justice that covered it up, Chomsky sneered at “the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women”. Wow. Never mind Manufacturing Consent – have a read of Not Giving A Shit About Consent. I thought Chomsky cared about power and exploitative elites? Still, nice photo of him laughing it up with Steve Bannon. Continue reading… More

    • 125 Shares76 Views

      in US Politics

      Newly released Jeffrey Epstein files: 10 key takeaways so far

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      Lawyers discussed possibility of Epstein’s cooperation with prosecutors – and more names surfaced in new documentsA new trove of about 3m files related to the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was released on Friday, offering new details about his network and interactions with wealthy and powerful figures and the federal investigations into his crimes.The release follows legislation passed in November by US lawmakers that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein-related documents. Continue reading… More

    • 113 Shares137 Views

      in Elections

      Fulton county to challenge FBI seizure of election documents

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      Commissioner to file motion requesting return of property unlawfully taken during raid related to 2020 electionFulton county leaders said they would fire back in court on Monday, intent on limiting the scope of a federal warrant that led the FBI to seize 2020 elections documents last week.County attorneys intend to file a motion in federal court asking for an order mandating the return of property that was unlawfully seized or retained, said the Fulton county commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. Continue reading… More

    • 238 Shares153 Views

      in US Politics

      Propaganda in cinemas, newsrooms slashed: this is the US media under Trump and his tech barons | Nesrine Malik

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      The president and his supporters joining forces to decide what audiences read and see seems straight from a fascism playbookTwo events, juxtaposed, tell us a great deal about what is rapidly taking shape in the US. In one, Melania Trump releases a glossy documentary, Melania, an account of her return to the White House. Amazon outbid others to secure the rights to the documentary, spending $75m (£54m) in total, and ticket sales so far suggest that this was, shall we say, not a purely commercial venture.In the other, the Washington Post is set to cut up to 200 jobs early this month, including the majority of its foreign staff and a sizeable chunk of its newsroom. Both Melania and the Washington Post are backed by Jeff Bezos. His two decisions, to invest in state propaganda and divest from the fourth estate that supposedly holds power to account, reveal much about how capital and authoritarianism join forces to decide what audiences read and see.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      US is in talks with Cuban leadership, says Trump, after blockade threats

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      US president announces efforts being made to strike a deal having earlier threatened to stop island importing oil Washington is negotiating with Havana’s leadership to strike a deal, Donald Trump has said, days after threatening Cuba’s reeling economy with a virtual oil blockade.“Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. So we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday. Continue reading… More

    • 225 Shares135 Views

      in US Politics

      Cuba on the brink as Trump turns up the pressure: ‘There is going to be a real blockade’

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      Country is already suffering acute fuel shortage; experts say complete cutoff will be ‘catastrophic’ to its infrastructureIt’s just gone midday on Linea, one of the main roads through Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood, and Javier Peña and Ysil Ribas have been waiting since 6am outside a petrol station. They’re passing the time fixing a leak on Ribas’s 1955 gold and white Mercury.A tanker has pulled up on the forecourt in front of them, and so the queue behind is growing fast. Although this station only takes US dollars, at a cost far out of reach of most Cubans, Peña says it’s their only choice. “There is no gas in the national pesos,” he says, shrugging. Continue reading… More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      How the left can win back the internet – and rise again | Robert Topinka

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      In the final part of this series, we look at how infighting has ripped the left apart online while the right has flourished – and how some progressives are turning the tideRobert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of LondonPart one: How liberals lost the internetPart two: How the right won the internetThere is politics before the internet, and politics after the internet. Liberals are floundering, the right are flourishing, and what of the left? Well, it’s in a dire state. This is despite the fact that the key political problems of the last decade – rising inequality and a cost of living crisis – are problems leftists claim they can solve. The trouble is, reactionaries and rightwingers steal their thunder online, quickly spreading messaging that blames scapegoats for structural problems. One reason for this is that platforms originally built to connect us with friends and followers now funnel us content designed to provoke emotional engagement.Back when Twitter was still the “town square” and Facebook a humble “social network”, progressives had an advantage: from the Arab spring to Occupy Wall Street, voices excluded from mainstream media and politics could leverage online social networks and turn them into real-life ones, which at their most potent became street-level protests that toppled regimes and held capitalism to account. It seemed as though the scattered masses would become a networked collective empowered to rise up against the powerful.Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London Continue reading… More

    • 163 Shares140 Views

      in US Politics

      Nurses remember Alex Pretti and vow to ‘bring the care our patients need’

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      Flowers and candles laid by VA building in Washington as killing reverberates through nursing communityFor Nolan Lee, it felt like Minnesota in Washington DC on Wednesday night. Despite the most extreme cold in 150 years, about a thousand people gathered in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) headquarters, a block from the White House, to remember Alex Pretti and demand an end to funding for US immigration and border agencies.The killings by federal agents of Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a veterans hospital, and Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, rocked Minneapolis and reverberated throughout the nation, with the future of US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – up for debate as a key funding bill that would increase the agency’s spending failed to pass the US Senate on Thursday. Continue reading… More