Now they can start murdering U.S. protesters.
"Choke their funding sources"??Now they can start murdering U.S. protesters.
Don't worry, the invent something to demonise their current targets.Seems they're increasingly desperate for some really scary enemies.
Of course they are. It's necessary for palingenetic ultranationalism. Enemies from within cause an existential threat to the state, justifying all sorts of authoritarian atrocities. Authoritrocities?Seems they're increasingly desperate for some really scary enemies.
Seems they're increasingly desperate for some really scary enemies.
It unfortunately works every time, the whole premise of this king of abject nationalism is based on "We're the most superior strong race in the universe" and "Our very existence is in mortal danger from the mere presence of people who are not exactly like us".It must be difficult when you're trying to simultaiously project 'We have the bestest army in the world!' and 'You're all in mortal danger from our enemies so we have to suspend the normal rules!' at the same time.
The frog costumes came from China. Coincidence???Now they can start murdering U.S. protesters.
The frog costumes came from China. Coincidence???
Just the hats, eh?So do Trump's MAGA hats, declare them international terrorists!
Just the hats, eh?
"According to journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein told him he flew at least once to Moscow, in 2017, to meet with Vladimir Putin, to whom Epstein bragged repeatedly about providing services in the final decade of his life."
I suppose it's possible, as such a thing certainly seems to be advantageous, and I could well imagine Putin or his ilk thinking up something like this if he had to, but I'm not convinced he had to. I think Americans are quite nasty, stupid, and greedy enough to do it alone, and to suggest they couldn't implies an optimistic American exceptionalism that I'm afraid our current leadership is proving unfounded.I had a thought, and I'm probably not the first. Could the Epstein empire be a product of Putin so he could have power over the elites? I mean, Republicans have been kissing Putin's ring for over a decade now.
Blackmail is used in spying and intelligence through "biographic leverage," where negative information about an individual is used to coerce them into cooperating, often by threatening to reveal embarrassing or damaging information. Common methods include exploiting personal scandals, financial problems, or criminal pasts, and using tactics like "honey traps" to create compromising situations that can be used for coercion. While some national intelligence agencies state they do not use blackmail, its use by intelligence services to recruit or pressure individuals remains a documented, though controversial, tactic.
J. Edgar Hoover: COINTELPRO and the 1950s (Wikipedia)
Hoover amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on many powerful people, especially politicians. According to Laurence Silberman, appointed Deputy Attorney General in early 1974, FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley thought such files either did not exist or had been destroyed. After The Washington Postbroke a story in January 1975, Kelley searched and found them in his outer office.
And even more here:Jeffrey Epstein: Career: Financial troubleshooter (1981–1987) (Wikipedia)
In the mid-1980s, Epstein traveled multiple times between the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. While in London, Epstein met Steven Hoffenberg. They had been introduced through Douglas Leese, a defense contractor, and John Mitchell, the former US attorney general. An anonymous source met with Epstein and Leese as early as 1981. Epstein also stated to some people at the time that he was an intelligence agent. Epstein associate Hoffenberg in 2020 alleged that Epstein was recruited in the 1980s by Leese to work for British intelligence, and that Hoffenberg introduced Epstein to Robert Maxwell.
During the 1980s, Epstein possessed an Austrian passport that had his photo, but with a false name. The passport showed his place of residence as Saudi Arabia. In 2017, "a former senior White House official" reported that Alexander Acosta, the US Attorneyfor the Southern District of Florida who had handled Epstein's criminal case at the end of the George W. Bush administration, had stated to interviewers of President Donald Trump's first transition team: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to 'leave it alone'", and that Epstein was "above his pay grade".
I think an elite sex-trade/extortion racket naturally generated tons of illicit money and contacts with the wealthy and powerful, and such a network would necessarily be useful to the intelligence services of any/some/most nations. So while I'm sure the CIA, KGB, Mossad, and probably everybody else was using Epstein links for their own purposes, I doubt any agencies actually set out to create the whole thing. It was a convenient hub of juicy information and influence and therefore a target of interest. Much like how if you set up a drug-running or smuggling scheme eventually organized crime is going to involve itself.