The current Democratic Party is increasingly reliant on affluent suburbanites to achieve power, and so those are the demographics that would wield the most leverage within the party coalition under Biden. Antifa/"BLM" is a sideshow to play-act radicalism
These suburbanites have adopted increasingly radical-seeming cultural attitudes, and of course that has some influence on the composition of the party. But it's mostly just superficial gloss to rationalize status quo perpetuation -- with a few identity-related adjustments
Biden's campaign is courting and emphasizing endorsements from people like Cindy McCain and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for a reason. If your answer to the question "whose interests will be most served by a Biden Administration" is "antifa" -- you are living in a fairy tale
It's a similar fairy tale that left-wing activists and journalists told themselves in 2016 when they maintained that the chief beneficiaries of a Trump Administration would be "Literal Nazis." You're so desperate to have a Culture War that you've become analytically deluded
"Catastrophism" across the political spectrum obscures the reality of what's actually happening in US affairs. It's also algorithmically driven: the people who peddle it turn into social media stars and cable news heroes. But the product is ultimately just junk food for the mind
Just elaborated on some of these points in beautiful video form:
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Basically what happened here is a person hailed as one of the media's foremost "experts" on Epstein (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) couldn't handle a few incredibly mild questions, accused me of being an agent of Dershowitz, and then prematurely terminated the stream. Video in article above
The episode was emblematic of how impossible it is to have any reasonable public discussion of this issue. Asking simple factual questions leads to wild accusations. Those wedded to the popular narrative never expect to be challenged at all -- they're in a cocoon of reaffirmation
There's so much wrong with this "Meet the Press" clip, it's incredible. The "victim" whose harrowing testimony Kristen Welker quotes from is Anouska De Georgiou, a British model, actress, and reality TV show contestant who was preposterously allowed to testify in the Maxwell trial under the fake name "Kate," even though Anouska De Georgiou had already made numerous public statements and media appearances about her purported experiences with Epstein, including an NBC News interview.
The judge ultimately instructed jurors that they could not convict Maxwell on the basis of any sexual contact "Kate" claimed to have with Epstein, as none of this alleged contact would have been illegal under the charges brought by the government. It was certainly never close to established at trial that "rape" or "sexual assault" was perpetrated on this person, despite her dramatic claims at the subsequent sentencing hearing (quoted by Welker) which were not subject to cross-examination.
Anouska De Georgiou, aka "Kate," maintained contact with Epstein into her 20s and 30s. The idea that her story constitutes illicit "sex trafficking," much less pedophilic sex trafficking, is simply ridiculous. And yet Welker reads off this searing quote to a TV audience that will never receive any additional context.
Speaker Mike Johnson's claim that there are "probably a thousand" victims of Epstein also makes absolutely no sense, and is nowhere close to established by any credible evidence. It derives from the FBI/DOJ memo earlier this month, which does not provide any articulated basis for the claimed figure of "one thousand" victims, and appears to conflate Epstein's alleged possession of commercial pornography (legal) with child sex abuse, collapsing it all into one amorphous category of "victims."
Throwing around that huge, wildly unsubstantiated number is a perfect way to keep the public hysteria going.
Another interesting part of Anouska De Georgiou's "victim impact statement" that Kristen Welker chose to omit from her reading on Meet the Press is De Georgiou claiming to have undergone "deprogramming" in her "mind and body" in her 40s. Whatever exactly that's supposed to mean
In 2008, when she was around 30, Anouska De Georgiou emailed Epstein while he was incarcerated in Florida, offering to send him photos of herself. In 2010, she dated David Hasselhoff. In 2011, she again initiated emails with Epstein, asking to visit and stay with him in New York
I'm almost always right about this crap, just sayin'
"Trafficking" as a legal construct is a relatively recent invention of over-zealous prosecutors, pandering politicians, and lazy sensationalized media, jointly fomenting sex hysteria and moral panic -- as American as Apple Pie
I apologize for not covering the farce that was the Ghislaine Maxwell trial sooner. One of the four "victims" the government relied upon was a self-described schizophrenic who said she heard voices telling her that sex traffickers were going to come and take her children away
One of the jurors lied on the jury questionnaire, which asked if they'd been victims of sexual abuse. He claimed his own story of abuse was critical in convincing fellow jurors to look past the holes in witnesses' stories. Then he tweeted in celebration with one of the "victims"
Here's a video of the juror being informed by the Daily Mail that he lied on the juror questionnaire. Incredible stuff
The text of the "minerals deal" that was signed yesterday is substantially different from earlier drafts
For one, it says that *future* US military assistance to Ukraine (not past assistance) will constitute "capital contributions" to the newly established joint investment fund. This can now be presented as the US in some sense getting "paid" for continuing to arm Ukraine, which could be a useful political argument for continuing to arm Ukraine -- but with a more profitable "deal"
The agreement contemplates that Ukraine could or will receive "reparations" for the invasion from Russia. This may come as news to Russia
Compared to past drafts, US ownership of Ukraine's physical infrastructure appears to have been watered down with legalese, but the US receive 50% of the revenues from a large variety of natural resources, including oil and natural gas
Trump's former and likely future National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, wrote an essay intellectualizing Trump's foreign policy. He says Trump defies "globalist orthodoxies" by strengthening NATO and increasing US military entanglements with Japan, Israel, and the Gulf states
O'Brien pines for Trump to correct the mistakes of Biden, who he says has not militarized Taiwan quickly enough. The next Administration must push Taiwan to expand conscription, and also start treating Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam like client states on par with Israel
O'Brien can't wait for Trump to resume his "Maximum Pressure" campaign against Iran, which Biden has largely continued but not aggressively enough for O'Brien. These means ramping up sanctions with the aim of "containing" Iran (and ultimately overthrowing its government)